


Let Us Roam the Night Together Singing

by Liminal_Space_LLC



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon Compliant, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Goalies Are Weird, Halloween, Happy Ending, Haunted Houses, Haunting, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Racism, Injury Recovery, Love Confessions, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Pre-Polyfarms, Supernatural Elements, The burning of the couch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-16 07:40:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21504277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liminal_Space_LLC/pseuds/Liminal_Space_LLC
Summary: Chris and Derek are ecstatic in their new relationship, but when Bitty burns the Couch and robs Chris of his goalie luck, they'll have to find a way to bring his luck back so he can stay on the team. Meanwhile, their weekend together begins to go awry when they discover Jenny and Mandy are not the only ones haunting the Haus.
Relationships: Chris "Chowder" Chow/Derek "Nursey" Nurse
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16
Collections: OMGCP Big Bang 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Nurse Shark is the best and I will die on that hill. Thanks to the lovely missweber for making [gorgeous art for this fic](https://missweber.tumblr.com/post/189199890952/art) :)

Derek gasped and pulled away for a moment. He looked down to see the pronounced tent at the front of Chris’s teal sweatpants.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—” Chris stumbled back to the far side of the hallway, “—I didn’t mean to pressure you, I just lost my head. Give me a minute and I’ll make it go away.” His mouth was pink from their kisses, and his eyes were so afraid. Derek’s heart hurt. Downstairs, someone at the party was laughing.

Derek was such an idiot, ruining this perfect moment. “No, Chowder, baby—” at ‘baby’ Chris’s gaze snapped up, his eyes wide, “—I just, didn’t think you’d want that?”

A pair of laughing girls stumbled between them and into the bathroom. When they were gone, Chris was staring at him in apparent confusion. “Why did you think I wouldn’t want that?” He stepped close again, close enough that Derek could smell the warm scent of his sweat. His eyes searched Derek’s face, and it was almost like a touch. 

Derek’s horny, crossfaded brain couldn’t think with that stare looking back at him and that boner at the edge of his vision. He closed his eyes and tried to touch the tight, apprehensive feeling in his chest. He had to draw it out into words. “You never hook up with guys. I thought maybe, it was a joke?” 

“Nursey, I would never joke like that, especially not with you.” His voice was so gentle. The feeling in Derek’s chest threatened to burst.

He kept his eyes closed, imagining he was simply talking to Chris in his mind, safe in the dark of his mind. “People act so different from themselves, with sex and hookups. It’s dangerous to assume.”

“Can I hold your hand?” 

Derek opened his eyes, surprised. Chris was still watching him carefully, but his face was softer now. Derek had no idea what was going on, but he lifted his hand and let Chris cradle it like it was as delicate as crystal.

“Derek Malik Nurse,” he said, formally, as if they were in court or something, “You are immeasurably precious to me. You are my friend, and I love you. I’m not a perfect person, but I will always do my best for you.”

As softly as a butterfly wing, he kissed Derek’s knuckles. The air felt impossibly thick, with the pumping music from below and the smells of sweat and alcohol and the electricity of Chris’s words. Derek’s mouth was dry. He swallowed.

Chris dropped his hand suddenly and stepped back again. “Fuck, sorry, that was too much. Way too much. I’ll shut up. Just, just tell me what you want.”

Derek wished he knew how to say aloud the sudden fullness in his heart. “Chris, no. Not too much. You’re so good. What do you want?”

Chris breathed a little laugh. “Probably too much.”

“Yeah?” Derek met his eye and slowly, emphatically looked across the lines of Chris’s broad shoulders, down to his gorgeous thighs and the bulge still clear inside his sweats, now beginning to grow again. When Derek looked up, Chris’s pupils were blown wide. “Show me.”

Chris’s expression darkened into that ferocious look Derek had only ever seen behind a goalie mask. In that gaze, Derek could feel the world grow small, until there was only him and Chris, hovering apart like the sky and the earth, yearning for a bolt of lightning to bring them together.

Then the distance broke as Chris swept forward, and Derek had Chris Chow in his arms again.

This time their kiss was not tentative or cautious, but hungry. Derek let himself sink in as Chris took him apart. He kissed with a gorgeous rhythm, at moments so intense Derek could barely breathe, then so gently it was almost sweet, then he’d press back in again, somehow more eager than before. As Chris pulled away a moment, Derek shuddered, somewhere between gasping for breath and delicious anticipation. He reached with his good hand to feel the incredible, firm curve of Chris’s ass. He squeezed, and Chris moaned into his mouth, hands tightening on Derek’s shoulders.

He could feel Chris’s cock hard against his hip, and in a brief lull of the kiss, when his brain went back online, he reached down to palm over it. Already there was a damp spot.

Chris batted his hand away, laughing breathily, “Not—not now. I need to focus or I’ll—it’s been a while.”

“But I’m done waiting.” Derek pouted, and Chris grinned his fullest, sunshine smile. He glanced down the hallway, at three figures who might have been Ollie and Wicky and someone else stumbling toward the attic stairs.

“My room?”

Derek nodded, and Chris tugged him away from the wall. His gaze flitted down to Derek’s straining jeans. His eyes glittered, and he stopped as if to say something, but he simply stared hungrily at the zipper of Derek’s jeans. Something hot and impatient shot up Derek’s spine, and he pushed Chris back. “Hurry up! I’m getting old here, Chow.”

Chris laughed again. “Sorry, sorry!”

They made their way haltingly down the hallway, stopping every two steps to kiss again, but finally they tumbled through the door into Chris’s teal room.

Something on the floor seemed to catch on Derek’s feet, and he felt himself start hurtling toward the desk, but strong arms caught him and pulled him upright. He found himself pressed into a wide-eyed Chris Chow. “Are you okay?”

Derek wondered if he had ever been more okay than now, wrapped in Chris’s arms with their noses almost touching, staring into those gorgeous dark eyes. He felt so safe here, sheltered. He kissed the tip of Chris’s nose in reply.

Chris shook his head ruefully, his arms relaxing slightly. “I’m here freaking out about your broken wrist, and all you have to say is—” he kissed the tip of Derek’s nose. “You’re a silly boy, Derek Nurse.”

“Well, you’re a sexy boy, Chris Chow,” Derek retorted, tugging at the hem of Chris’s t-shirt, “So take off your damn clothes.

Chris smiled sweetly, as if he was doing this just to make Derek happy. With stunning efficiency he stripped down to his boxers. Derek had seen how Chris’s summer regimen had changed his performance between the pipes, but this was something else. As Chris leaned to one side with patient amusement, Derek could see the muscles in his thighs and calves react and flex. The new tattoo gorgeously highlighted the cut just over his hip.

_ A sudden shyness struck Derek. Since his injury, he had not been keeping up the athlete’s regimen very closely. The doctor had told him not to do intense exercise, and there didn’t seem to be much point in keeping up his diet if he couldn’t play until next year. _

_ But looking at Chris, the image of fitness, he realized that his body had already changed. He was softer than he’d been two months ago.  _

_ “Derek?” Chris’s eyes were soft with concern. “Are you alright?” _

_ He jostled himself. “Yeah, just in my head.” _

Chris pushed away from the bed, sending a ripple of muscle up his shoulders. “Can I see you?”

Clumsy with his one hand, Derek pulled his shirt over his head and tugged off his pants, but at the sound of a soft “fuck,” he looked up to see Chris biting his lip, eyes wide.

“You like what you see?”

“Jeez, Nursey. You are beautiful. So fucking beautiful.” He pulled Derek back into their kiss, pressing their bodies together, chest to chest, thigh to thigh, hip to hip. Chris’s mouth was all warmth and delicious intensity, and their dicks were sliding up against each other with exquisite friction, and it was everything Derek wanted. He leaned into it, and Chris let him, leaning into the bed frame so they could have real pressure between them.

Derek grinded his hips up, and Chris moaned so beautifully he had to do it again. This time Chris pulled away from the kiss with a groan and reached his hands down to squeeze Derek’s ass, pulling them somehow closer. “Fuck that feels good.”

Derek could only nod, pushing harder into Chris’s hips, lifting up on his toes to try to get a better angle. With Chris’s hands holding him up, he was almost off the ground. He bent his head into the crook of Chris’s neck and held onto his shoulders for dear life, as the heat built in the base of his dick. He could almost feel the same heat building in Chris as his breathing grew faster, rougher, long fingers pressing into his ass.

“Derek,” Chris panted, “I want, I want to touch you.”

A bolt of electricity seemed to run down from Derek’s spine to his dick, and he had to pull away, grabbing at his dick to stop himself from coming in his briefs.

“Oh, Derek! We don’t have to do that. I’m sorry.” Chris’s hands twisted together anxiously. “I’m getting this all wrong, I’m sorry.”

Derek had to wade through the lust in his brain before he understood what Chris was saying. “No, Chris, baby, you’re so good. So damn good.” He pushed back into Chris’s chest, glad to feel Chris tentatively holding him again. “I just didn’t want to come in my shorts.”

“Oh!” Chris looked at him wide-eyed. “That makes sense! I’ve just never seen another guy do that before! Wow.” He stared off into the distance as though suddenly in deep thought. 

Derek gave him a moment, but his dick was very aware of Chris’s hands resting gently at his hips. He drew his fingers down the lovely curve from Chris’s neck to his shoulder. “C, I appreciate that gay sex is revelatory, but, also, I would like you on top of me.”

The hands at his hips suddenly tightened. Chris looked at him, the heat back in his eyes. For second, they simply looked at each other, and Derek’s breath hitched in his chest. A moment ago, Chris had been his usual goofy, adorable self, but like something had flipped a switch in him, his gaze had become utterly focused. Derek felt the intent in that gaze, an athlete’s promise to use every ounce of his skill and strength for the play at hand.

All that skill and strength, for him. Derek shivered.

Chris gave him a small smile and pecked a kiss to Derek’s cheek before jerking his head toward the bed, wordlessly inviting him in.

As he had done many times on very different occasions, Derek jumped up onto the lofted bed. He watched Chris open one of his drawers and carefully comb through the contents. “Condom? I didn’t test positive for anything at check up,” Chris asked without looking up.

“No thanks. And same.”

“How do you feel about silicone?”

Derek swallowed. “Great.”

Chris’s little smile was back. He pulled a small black bottle from the drawer and walked toward the bed just slowly enough to be taunting. Derek palmed at his dick, and Chris seemed unable to look away. “Maybe I should just jack off for you,” Derek teased.

With incredible grace, Chris leapt onto the raised bed, landing with one thigh perfectly slotted between Derek’s legs. “I don’t want to miss out on the fun,” he said with a small smile. He leaned down to kiss Derek, and finally there was that incredible weight he’d been craving all night.

Derek loved this part, when all words and thought fell away, and they were just two bodies twining together as if trying to become one. Chris’s body pressed down onto his bones, all pressure and warm, smooth skin, and Derek was nothing but senses. The firmness of an incredible ass in his hands, the rough tenderness of the kiss at his lips, the eager push of another cock against his. Strong hands roaming and sending warm currents rushing through him; sweet, craving sounds; and the lingering taste of Hennessy and Gatorade.

Then Chris pulled away, and Derek whimpered his displeasure even as Chris reached for the bottle of lube on the windowsill.

“You’re a cutie, you know that?” Chris curled back down and sweetly brushed a kiss like a feather to Derek’s nose. “A real cutie. Now help me take off your underwear.”

Derek wondered if he should hold Chris here, sat atop his hips—he was sure he could make him laugh again—but all his patience was shot. He lifted his hips to help Chris tug off his briefs. 

Then, faster than thought, Chris was warming up lube in one hand and tentatively tracing the head of Derek’s cock with his dry fingertips. “Wow, wow, wow. Um, wow.”

The tickling touch should have been strange, but Derek was so keyed up it just turned him on. “Chris, baby, please.” His dick had that glowing hot feeling it got when it had waited too fucking long.

Chris flashed him a little nervous smile. Then he set his face and reached for Derek’s dick.

Derek closed his eyes for a moment and let himself feel. Chris’s first few touches were just as delicate as before, almost teasing, before long, slick fingers wrapped around him.

Chris wasn’t perfect right off the bat, but he was pretty damn close. This may have been the first hand job he’d given, but he definitely knew the score. His hand played with rhythms, skillfully touching all the best spots. Derek listened to Chris’s ragged breaths by his ear and zoned out, just enjoying having Chris touch him so attentively.

Then the rhythm of Chris’s hand on his cock found the perfect groove. “Fuck.”

“Yeah? Derek, cutie, how’s that?” His thumb swiped at the sensitive spot just under the head of Derek’s dick, and he moaned, finally opening his eyes.

Chris was watching him, dark eyes blazing, eyebrows drawn together with focus. A drop of sweat was coursing down his chest, just hugging the curve of his pec. “Tighter, baby,” Derek gasped as Chris’s thumb gave him another swipe.

“Oh, jeez.” Chris’s hand tightened on his dick, and Derek gave an involuntary whine. Chris collapsed from his hand to his elbow. “Fuck, you turn me on, fuck, fuck—”

Derek pulled him back into their kiss, but it was though their mouths had become charged with electricity. The tension in his dick was growing, and Chris wasn’t letting up, and he wanted more and more and more, and Chris was making sounds that rumbled into his chest, and Derek could feel Chris grinding into his hip, and soft hair was flopping onto his forehead, and Chris’s thumb pressed into his dick just as Chris bit into his neck.

Derek came, and his eyes filled with white light. The orgasm shuddered through him, sending shockwaves through his body, and he gasped for breath. 

When his senses came back to him, he realized Chris was still pressing kisses to his neck, sweet little daisy-like things. Derek ran his fingers through that dark floppy hair. He’d been growing it out—it might almost count as flow now. “Chris, baby?”

Chris peered up from under his lashes, “Uh-huh?”

“What do you want?”

Chris chewed his bottom lip sweetly. “Oh, you sound sleepy—I don’t need anything, that was plenty nice. I’m fine.”

“Blowjob, then?”

His eyes flicked to Derek’s mouth, and Derek had to laugh as Chris said, “Um… ’swawesome?”

“What does that mean?”

“Uh. Yes? Yes. Blowjob-yes.” His eyes were still locked on Derek’s mouth.

Derek got the sense that it was taking most of Chris’s brainpower to say even that, so he just smiled a kiss into Chris’s hair. “You got it, C. Now take off those damn boxers and sit down.”

He found the lube buried under the mess of sheets, and when he looked back, Chris was sitting with one hand clenched around his erect dick, looking embarrassed. “I’m not gonna last, Nursey.”

“Don’t worry, baby—” Derek tried to kiss that tinge of shame from Chris voice as he let his lubed fingers drift down Chris’s abs, “—you’re perfect. Just perfect.” He felt the hitch in Chris’s breath against his lips as his fingers reached the curling hairs at the base of Chris’s cock. “Just let me know when.”

Chris whined into his mouth, and Derek half wanted to jack him off just like this, with all those delicious sounds pressed into his lips, but this was Chris’s first time with a guy, and, well…

He wanted to show off a little.

Derek pressed one last kiss to Chris pink lips and held their gaze locked together as he drew back. Chris was still holding the base of his dick, and Derek kissed his knuckles. Chris sighed. Derek chuckled, “Let go, baby.”

Chris pulled away his fingers, and Derek gave himself one moment to admire just how gorgeous Chris’s dick was before he swallowed Chris all the way down.

Above him, Chris yelped, and his whole body seemed to spasm, pushing his dick even deeper, rubbing against Derek’s throat. If his mouth hadn’t been full, Derek would have smiled. This was going to be fun.

He closed his eyes and let himself linger one moment longer with his nose nestled in the soft black hair and the salty smell. Then he pulled back and let instinct take over. Chris was smooth and firm against his tongue, and the half-choking rhythm of the head of his cock against his throat was hypnotic. He let his hands fall in with the cadence of his mouth, one on the tender, rigid shaft of Chris’s cock, one wandering, finding what Chris liked. His ears were full of warm groans and gasping breaths. Strong hands gripped his shoulders, thumbs tenderly pressing the nape of his neck.

Then knuckles were rapping at his shoulder blade. He pulled his mouth away, leaving his hands to jerk Chris through.

Chris’s head was arched back, his eyes wide, gazing sightlessly at the ceiling. Derek let the rhythm of his hand speed up just a touch.

With a gasp, Chris came all over his fist, warm fluid gushing down his wrist. Before Derek could even smile, Chris pulled him back into a kiss. “Derek, Derek, Derek,” he mumbled into their lips.

“You liked it?” Derek asked, though it was hard to be coy with Chris chanting his name worshipfully into his skin. Something thick and tight was welling up in his chest.

“Yesyesyes, oh Derek, oh, you are so wonderful, what a cutie, what a honey,” he nuzzled his nose into Derek’s cheek, kissing the edge of his jaw, “So sweet, so good, Derek, Derek, Derek…”

The pain in Derek’s chest was rising into his throat. His eyes stung, and he hid his face in Chris’s neck. His arms wrapped around Chris’s shoulders, pleading with him to be closer, and it was pure relief when Chris hugged him around his waist. “All worn out, huh, cutie?”

Derek nodded into Chris’s shoulder; he didn’t know what Chris would see in his face if he looked up right now.

Without a word, Chris gently manhandled him under the covers, quickly wiping the cum off his hands with a tissue, plumping the pillow under his head. Then he flicked off the lamp and climbed into the bed, cradling Derek against his body.

“You cozy?” Chris asked, pressing a kiss into Derek’s shoulder.

Above dark, quiet Samwell, the moon was shining silver bright, wreathed in delicate stars. As Chris murmured softly in his ear, Derek clung to those stars out the window, pulling himself away from the feeling that threatened to overwhelm him. He let the heavy weight of exhaustion draw him into the thoughtless, emotionless darkness of that sky, into deep, deep sleep.

***

Derek woke slowly. Somewhere was the soft patter of raindrops, and the light on the pillow was soft and gray. Outside the window, the rainy day had imbued the colors of Samwell in fall with a strange, soft brilliance. It occurred to him that the sound of the rain was strangely sharp, as if raindrops were falling inside somewhere. He rolled over, wondering if the roof had fallen in during the party and whether Poindexter would know how to fix it.

The sound wasn’t rain. It was Chris, typing something on his laptop with a pensive look. It was a perfectly normal sight, except instead of his usual teal, he was wearing a blisteringly orange T-shirt. 

“Wha’ the hell’re you wearing?” Derek groaned.

Chris looked up with a smile. “Good morning! Want some tea? It’s from my special stash of Jasmine.”

Derek nodded into his pillow and watched as Chris neatly poured him a mug of tea from the special ceramic teapot he kept in his room. Derek had only seen it twice before, in the rarified hours when he and Chris and Cait and Will had stayed up deep, deep into the night talking about life. It lent a strange importance to what should have been some ordinary morning caffeination.

Chris handed him the cup casually, as if this were a normal morning. “Did you sleep well?”

“Mmm.” The tea was gloriously fragrant, like the sweetest spring flowers. “How long did I sleep?”

“Well, the good news is: it’s still morning. The bad news is: it’s only going to be morning for five more minutes.”

“Alack. Wait, did I miss cleaning?”

“Oh. Well…” Chris’s cheeks went slightly pink, “I didn’t know if you would want the team to know, um—you know—so I said you left for a hook up? Is that alright?”

“Uh, yeah, nbd.” But something about Chris’s tone touched a painful and tender place in his chest. “Are you uncomfortable about us hooking up?”

“No! Oh, Derek, no, not at all!” He leapt out of his chair, and in two strides he was so close Derek could smell his incense shampoo. “But if we told the team, it would mean that we’d be, like, a thing. And I couldn’t just do that! I hadn’t even asked you!” 

Chris Chow. So considerate. So good it could break a person’s heart.

“Does that mean you want us to be, quote-unquote, ‘a thing?’”

Chris smiled shyly. “Yeah.”

He said it so sweetly, so earnestly, Derek’s heart felt impossibly soft, like leather worn to transparent thinness. “Was the blowjob that good?”

Chris laughed like an angel. “Of course! You may be one of my favorite people in the world, but the real draw is your blowjob skills. Duh!”

Derek had to kiss him then.

***

There was an ease to being with Chris that Derek had never known in any of his other relationships. The rhythm of his day hardly changed. 

The team didn’t seem to notice that he and Chris held hands sometimes on the walk back from dinner. His private chat with Chris was now dotted with pure medical grade Chowder sweetness. In the evenings, he worked in the library with Chris and Will, but now Will chirped him and Chris for trying to cuddle in the uncomfortable library chairs.

But more than anything, it was the way Chris passed every red-flag test with virtuosic ease. He was gentle, he was kind, he was good. And unlike with any of Derek’s exes, Derek didn’t have to miss time with his friends to hang out at weird parties or reassure someone that he liked them even though he spent time with a bunch of hot athletes. And Chris always texted him back.

There was nothing to fear in Chris. Derek knew his heart, and it was pure gold.

So he wasn’t sure why Chris made him so nervous.

_____

As Derek walked to the dining hall, campus was finally starting to shake off its morning sleepiness. The birdsong was getting drowned out by the low hum of tired people leaving their early classes, and the morning mist was burning off of the pond.

Then a wild Cait Farmer ran up and hugged him with her whole body. “DEREK!”

He hugged her back as best he could when she was mostly on top of him. “Hi Caity-milady, how are you?”

“Oh, y’know. I’m good. Went to practice, found out two of my favorite people are dating!!!”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Just got Chris’s message! I’m so happy! You better tell me everything because he is USELESS.”

“What can I say? He’s an alright hook up. We’ll see if he’s a keeper.”

She laughed her wonderful, bright laugh. “Uh-huh. Of course. Because I’ve never seen you give him the heart eyes. Not at all.”

“Don’t expose me like that! We’re in public!” As they walked toward the dining hall, catching up on their weekends, Derek felt some of the latent anxiety in his chest ease off. Cait seemed genuinely excited for Chris and him to be a thing. Though he probably should have expected it—their “break up” had been utterly chill. From what Derek could glean, they’d both decided to take a break. Cait had spoken about wanting to explore her gender and sexuality more, and Derek had thought that was the reason, but he supposed now he knew that Chris had some sexuality stuff to figure out.

Even so, he couldn’t have been sure that Cait would be totally cool with him and Chris dating, and it made him feel infinitely better to hear it from her directly. He knew what Cait looked like when she was hiding something, and she was clearly happy about this development.

“Annie’s on Thursday?” she asked him as they walked through the dining hall entrance.

“Chyeah—and text me how the project goes, okay?”

She rolled her eyes. “Pray for me, is all I’m saying.”

The SMH table was not quite as loud as when Holster had presided court over team breakfast, but they were still obvious among the mumbling, dead-eyed crowd. Ollie and Wicky were hotly debating something about the Colorado Avalanche and free agents, Bitty and Ford were planning some kind of bonfire, and Louis for some reason thought this was a good time to share his Swedish electronica with Bully, provoking angry stares from the other tables.

At the end of the table, though, Dex and Chris were talking more quietly over the New York Times Crossword.

Without warning, butterflies exploded in Derek’s stomach. With his head bent over the newspaper, his mouth hanging slightly open, Chris was impossibly beautiful. When Chris focused, his gaze was so steady, so sure, it could hold you up when you were falling. On the ice, that focus could steady the whole team. And when Derek doubted himself, Chris could look at him with those eyes, and the very strength of his faith in Derek could give him confidence again. Chris had done it on Friday when he swore, “I will always do my best for you.” And now those words filled Derek up until he nearly overflowed with them. Anyone else saying those words would be promising to try, but when Chris said them they were simply a statement of truth. He would always have the best of Chris Chow. He would always have a soft place to land.

Then suddenly, Derek felt a tug at his shoe, and he was flying forward. He crashed into someone carrying a tray of half-eaten food, and a sickening cold feeling spread down his neck, telling him he’d gotten soaked in someone’s breakfast.

Already he could hear Will, “NURSEY! Your arm is broken! Why weren’t you watching where you were going? How are you so irresponsible with your own…” Dex rambled off the usual while Derek looked up to see who he’d collided with.

It was Richard from the golf team, grinning. “You know if you wanted to see me again, you could have just texted.”

Derek groaned. “Ugh, fuck off.” Richard looked like he was going to say something else stupid, but thankfully Chris appeared above them right then, hand outstretched for Derek.

For a moment, Derek tried to use his broken arm to take Chris’s proffered hand, and Chris laughed softly. “No, baby, the other one.”

Even though Derek was covered in cold, wet food, a burst of warmth spread through his body. He stood up and brushed the cheerios off his sleeve. “Well, bye Rich.”

Because he was a dick, Rich kissed his fingers and said, “Bye-bye, then. See you next fall,” as he walked off.

Derek had to bite back a retort. Luckily, Will was taking over for him. “Oh, very clever, golf boy. Too bad your brains also came in under par!”

“Dex,” Chris said calmly as he Derek settled down at the table, “shut up.”

Will sat down grudgingly. “I fucking hate that guy.”

Chris picked up a napkin and raised it toward Derek’s head with a questioning look. Derek nodded, and Chris began to gently pat down his curls. Under the table, Derek grabbed Chris’s free hand and squeezed it. “How was practice?”

Chris shrugged, and Will opined the misery of Bitty’s Russian fitness plan, which had just moved into stage three. Derek listened vaguely, watching Chris out of the corner of his eye. Chris was now patting the milk off of his ears, and he was doing it with as much focus as he’d used for the crossword.

Chris noticed him looking and gave him a small smile. Then he covertly glanced up the table, snatched up a clean napkin, and pressed a kiss to the paper before patting it on Derek’s cheek.

Derek felt suddenly full of light. He wondered if he might begin to actually glow if Chris kissed him again. 

“Good lord,” Will hissed, “you two are gross. Nurse, I’m getting your waffles. Try to get the giant pink hearts out of your eyes before I get back. I want to eat.”

Chris grinned at Will’s retreating back. “Practice was good. Only let in five pucks.”

“Yeah?”

“And the Waffles are looking so good! Hops had some really great shots—he’s getting better at changing it up!”

Chris and Will walked Derek to his first class, soaking up the sunshine peeking between the clouds and finally spilling on the real deets: the continuing saga of Coach Murray falling in love with early aughts Britney Spears. As they walked, Chris’s hand kept brushing tantalizingly against his, until Derek finally twined their fingers together.

Derek felt, rather than saw, Chris stop breathing. “Chris, are you okay?”

He nodded, but his face was without expression. “Yeah, yeah. It’s fine.”

“Do you want to stop—is this too much?” Derek already felt his heart sinking. Perhaps Chris didn’t feel quite as much for him as he’d hoped. Maybe all the sweetness had just been Chris’s normal self filtered through Derek’s lovelorn mind.

Chris shook his head. “I’ve just, never held hands with a guy like this.” He looked down at their linked hands and swallowed. “Not in public. It’s…scary?”

Derek felt a wave of mixed relief and guilt. He dropped Chris’s hand. “I’m sorry, C, I’m so sorry. I should have asked, that makes complete sense—if it’s any help, I’ve never had any trouble in Samwell.” At least, in Derek’s limited experience holding hands with boys around Samwell.

Chris stared at his feet as they walked. “I know! I promise, I want to hold your hand! It’s just—that’s new. All that part. I’m sorry for freaking out.”

Will circled around to Chris’s side. He wrapped an arm around Chris’s shoulders. “Don’t be sorry. You got scared because it’s scary. Nothing wrong with that.”

Chris gave a watery smile. “I know.” They approached the English building, and Chris squared his shoulders. “Nursey, I’m going to kiss you goodbye.”

“Um, what?” They were at the edge of the biggest quad on campus, surrounded by half the school. It was impossible to be more public.

“Well, maybe inside the door.”

Will waited outside as Chris and Nursey slipped inside the English building doors along with a small crowd of English majors. In the entranceway Chris tugged him aside and pushed him ever so slightly against to the wall. Holding Derek’s gaze, he drew his fingers along Derek’s arm up to his jawline. He guided Derek’s face down and and pressed a soft kiss to his lips, lingering just long enough for Derek to feel the softness of his lips. “Have a good class, Derek Malik,” he whispered with a little smile and he slipped out the door.

When Derek remembered how to breathe, he went to class.

He was a mess all through “Open Ended Novels,” not least because the phenomenally rude Catherine told him he smelled like milk. His mind kept wandering dreamily back to that kiss, and to the impossibly tender way Chris patted the milk out of his curls. The way Chris touched him, so gently and deliberately, seemed to sink in, down to his bones, and make everything better even when he wasn’t there. No one he’d ever known had touched him with such care.

He left class with only a vague idea of what they’d talked about. His next class was a writing workshop, and he did his best to pull himself together and pay attention to his classmates’ work. He tried to give somewhat coherent feedback. Afterward though, his professor gave him a significant look. Derek dawdled, waiting for his professor to say he was a disappointment, trying to remember what he’d done to earn Professor Dearborn’s ire. 

“Derek,” Professor Dearborn said as she packed up her bag, “I just wanted to say how much I appreciated your passion in class. I know talking in class is not your favorite thing, but you had great insight.”

For a moment, Derek was struck speechless. “Oh.” He didn’t understand how he could be better in class when he was completely distracted. What the hell was that supposed to mean? “Um, thank you? I appreciate it.”

Professor Dearborn gave him a smile that said he was dismissed, and Derek bolted as slowly and collectedly as he could.

He came to a stop under a twisting orange tree. Automatically, he checked his phone. With relief, he saw that Chris had just texted him.

C: How did your workshop go? Did they say nice things???

D: Yeah. And Kevin wasn’t there.

C: Nice! What did they say?!!!

D: They kinda got the rhythm thing I was going for, and they liked it

D: My prof was super weird though

C: :( How???

D: She said I had “great insight”

C: That sounds good?

D: Yeah, I think so 

D: I just, feel weird about it

C: :I((((

C: we stole pizza from a compsci thing

C: come 2 the haus and eat pizza

D: <heart eyes>

D: omw

He found Chris curled up on the green couch with his laptop. Derek threw down his backpack, and Chris looked up with a soft smile. He put down the computer and opened his arms. “Come here baby.” Derek fell gratefully into his embrace.

“Hey cutie,” Chris murmured into his curls, “how’s it going?”

He groaned and buried his face further into Chris’s Shark’s hoodie.

Chris’s chest quaked softly beneath him as he chuckled. “Gotcha.” Chris’s arms squeezed him. “Want to talk about it or do you want some distraction?”

Derek could not name the horrible anxious vibration under his skin, other than to know that it was the worst. “Distraction,” he mumbled.

“Okay! Well, did you see the video of the dreaming octopus?”

Derek shook his head, still keeping his face firmly pressed against Sharkie the shark logo.

“Well, there’s this video of an octopus, and it’s in its tank, and there’s a voiceover by a scientist talking about how they don’t know if octopuses dream.”

“Octopodes,” Derek mumbled.

“Don’t bring your English major sass into my story. Well, then the octopus starts changing colors. Even though it’s asleep! its eyes are closed and it's all huddled up to the top of its tank, and it’s changing colors! And the scientist starts narrating what it’s dreaming! He says one color means the octopus is sneaking up on a crab, and this one is about catching the crab, and then the other one is about eating the crab! Isn’t that amazing?! You can tell what an octopus is thinking just by looking at it! Now I want to go to the aquarium and watch the octopuses—“

“—octopi—“

“—and read their minds by looking at them! Wouldn’t that be wild?! It would be ‘swawesome to just be like, ‘this guy is brown, he’s feeling hungry, ‘this octopus is purple because he’s in love with that octopus’ and ‘this octopus is blue because she's worried she won’t be able to pay off the mortgage on that seashell she and her wife bought.’”

Derek looked up to rest his chin on Chris’s shoulder. “Very specific. Is there a different shade of blue for worrying about your octopus student loans?”

“I hope so! You know, the sea is full of loan sharks.”

“Oh my god. Oh my god. Are you actually going to make that pun? Did those words really leaves your mouth?”

Chris grinned down at him. “Maybe. Whatcha gonna do to stop me?”

Derek leaned up and kissed him, giving him just the barest nip on his lip. “Did that work? No more bad puns, ever?”

Chris licked his bottom lip thoughtfully. “I don’t know. But try again—maybe it’ll take this time.”

Derek kissed him again, letting himself melt into this kiss. Chris’s hands drifted across his back, and it felt so good, Chris’s warm body beneath him, pressed together like pages of a book, his fingers just brushing the sensitive skin at the top of his jeans. Chris’s mouth was warm and wanting, and the kiss began to grow in urgency. Derek’s ears filled with soft gasps and moans, and Chris’s arms held him tight as though they could somehow be closer. 

Chris’s hand danced down to the top of Derek’s ass, and pulled a hair away from their kiss. “Can I?”

“Fuck yes,” Derek gasped and pressed back into Chris’s lips.

Chris squeezed his ass, and a delicious flood of head rushed up Derek’s stomach. He reached down to palm the taut muscle of Chris’s thigh and tugged his leg up to intertwine their legs. “Chris, I wanna—“

The unmistakable sound of footsteps came floating in from the porch. Underneath him, Chris froze. “If it’s Bitty, we’ll get the biggest fine in the world,” he whispered with a giggle.

Derek breathed a nervous laugh. Then the door creaked open, and reflexively he tried to climb off of Chris, but just as his other foot was reaching the ground, it felt like the floor was slipping out from under him. “Fuck!” He fell, face first, onto the ground, narrowly avoiding landing directly on his broken wrist. Instead he basically belly-flopped onto the carpet.

“Nursey!” Chowder cried.

“Oh my God,” came Dex’s voice, “were you two making out on the shitty couch?”

“Dex, shut up for a minute. Derek? Are you alright?”

Derek nodded into the carpet. His body seemed uninterested in moving, so he stayed. Every bone in his body was sore, even the ones that surely could not have been hurt in the fall. “M’fine. Jus’ leave me here forever.”

“Come on.” Chris was by his side and took Derek bodily into his arms and gently rolled him onto his back. Facing up, he could see Chris smiling affectionately.

Will, however, was staring down with extreme skepticism. “You guys are so lucky it was just me. If Bitty saw you going at it on that foul excuse for a piece of furniture he might never talk to you again.”

Chris rolled his eyes. “It’s not a bad couch! It’s a wise couch!”

Derek groaned and rubbed his eyes. “Impressive. You made the word ‘wise’ sound dirty.”

Chris grinned wickedly. “I thought you liked my dirty sounds.”

Derek cackled, and Will made a soft yelp. “I’m noping out of here to pour bleach in my ears. Jesus Christ.” He scampered into the basement, the back of his neck bright red.

Chris was biting his lip to suppress his laughter. He raised his voice. “I shouldn’t enjoy tormenting Dex so much, right? He’s just an innocent boy from backwater Maine, and pure as the driven snow, except for that one time—“

“—three times now—“ Derek reminded him.

“Three times with the racquetball team. I mean, we can’t expect him to know about such things as dirty talk, when it’s only been three times with the racquetball team—“

“Don’t slut shame me!” came Dex’s voice through the basement door. 

Derek and Chris collapsed into the couch laughing, and just when they had nearly gotten themselves together, they discovered Dex had texted them an angry face emoji in the groupchat, and they fell apart laughing again.

Eventually Will came back, grinning sheepishly, and they ate the compsci pizza together. Derek curled up against Chris’s chest, and gradually the living room filled up around them. The Waffles taking their places around the coffee table, Ford and Tango huddling around a computer on the loveseat, Bitty sitting akimbo on the new arm chair, occasionally doing work when Chris or Will cleared their throats meaningfully. No one seemed to notice when Chris covertly pressed kisses into his hairline, sending a thrill up his spine.

Chris was like that with everyone, probably. Though Derek had sometimes worried that his crush made him lean in too much. Even when Chris and Cait had been monogamous, Derek had let himself indulge, in his weakest moments, in the fantasy that Chris’s hugs and and cuddles meant something different when he did them with Derek. That was when he let himself believe that Chris wanted him, too.

Chris pressed his nose into Derek’s hair and gave him a little nuzzle. The gesture was so impossibly sweet that Derek’s joy was almost painful. He looked up to see Chris smiling fondly at his laptop. His eyes glanced over to Derek, and his smile turned sly. He raised a finger to his lips, then tapped something out on his laptop.

Derek’s phone buzzed. He opened it to find a text from Chris, “You are so cute when you read!”

Derek’s whole body relaxed into the couch. Chris thought he was cute. That was so wonderfully real.

—

Derek woke up to soft whimpering sounds. He blinked awake to slanting morning light. Chris was next to him, sitting straight upright looking at his phone, making soft pained sounds.

“Baby? What’s wrong?” Derek asked in a mumble, sitting up floppily

“Bitty just messaged the group,” he answered with a slight thickness in his voice, “He’s gonna get rid of the couch.”

“Oh, Chris, I’m so sorry.” He wrapped Chris in his arms and squeezed him. Chris was shaking slightly.

Chris bend his head to press his face into Derek’s arm. “He’s going to burn the couch.”

“Burn it? That seems excessive.”

“You think? It’s a piece of furniture for god sakes! And why is he so angry at a couch! It’s a couch! It never did anything wrong!”

Derek’s sense of smell had some differing opinions, but he thought it best not to mention it. “I know baby.”

“That couch has given me luck for two years! And now Bitty is going to set it on fire! It’s disrespectful! That couch is a part of the Haus. It deserves better than being burned. How would he have felt if we burned Betty, huh?

“You should talk to him. Tell him how you feel about the whole burning couch thing.”

Chris gave him doleful look. “He already got all the supplies. He sent a photo the groupchat.”

“Actually?!” Derek felt around under the pillow and pulled out his phone to find even more notifications from the SMH group chat than usual. And, indeed, he opened his phone to find a picture of Ford with several cans of gasoline that were nearly as big as her. He scrolled through the chat. Most of the team seemed to take this in stride as another of Bitty’s weird quirks—of which there were admittedly many. He scrolled until-“Wait, he’s doing this tonight?”

“Cause tomorrow’s the Halloween parties, then we leave for the roadie, and next week is midterms.”

“Is this supposed to be a party? Are we going to get drunk and burn a couch? As the local expert on terrible drunk ideas, I would describe that as a terrible idea.”

Chris shrugged. He stared at the bottom of the chat, where everyone was coordinating what Halloween parties they were going to. “This is a dumb thing to be upset about, isn’t it? It’s just a couch.”

“I’ll grant it’s a little unconventional, but it’s not dumb. you’ve slept on that couch a lot. It’s a part of your rituals. It’s a part of your life.”

“I don’t know if it’s even that! Like, I feel like that couch deserves more respect than just being burned. It’s the couch!”

Derek gave him a squeeze. “Then you should talk to Bitty about it. Tell him that this bothers you!”

Chris looked at him dubiously. “Do I have to?”

“No one will ever know how you feel unless you tell them.”

“I’ll try,” he said, though he still sounded skeptical.

“If you want, me or Dex could come—“

“No!” Chris nearly jumped out of Derek’s arms. “You guys are great, and I love you, but oh my god no. What if it turned into a fight?!”

Derek was torn between feeling slightly offended and a strange lightheadedness from Chris saying he loved him (and Dex, probably). “Sometimes fighting is okay, when it’s about something important.”

Chris raised his eyebrows, and Derek had the grace to feel a little ashamed. Not all of his fights with Will had been about things he would describe as important. “I know, I know. You got me. I’m talking out of my ass, but I’m still right. Disagreements are a part of any relationship, and ignoring them doesn’t fix anything.”

Chris signed. “You’re right. I know you’re right. But I hate it! Making people mad at you is the worst feeling in the world.”

“Not every fight is the worst thing ever. Theoretically, we are having a fight right now.” He picked up Chris’s hand and kissed it. “And this isn’t so bad.”

Chris’s eyes went wide. “Don’t galaxy brain me out of nowhere like that! Fuck! You’re too smart.” He gently tackled Derek into a kiss against the wall.

“Chris,” Derek laughed, even as Chris kept kissing him, “I have morning breath!”

“Don’t care. You’re too cute,” Chris said against Derek’s lips.

Derek laughed and let himself melt into their kiss, satisfied that Chris was going to be okay.

When Derek got back from the library, though, the couch was sitting on the lawn in front of the Haus, surrounded by tanks of gasoline. Various members of SMH were sitting on the porch, watching the couch out the corners of their eyes as they chatted. Notably, Chris was not among them.

Derek grabbed Will by his flannel and pulled him out of his conversation with Bully, into the Haus. “Have you seen Chowder?”

“Not since lunch. Why? Is something wrong?”

“He hasn’t replied to my texts in a few hours. Come on.” He climbed the stairs. Will followed close behind him.

They checked Chris’s room, Derek’s room, even the bathroom between them. Chris was nowhere to be found.

“Attic?” suggested Dex.

“You check. That ladder and I have a blood feud.”

But when Will pulled his head back out of the attic, he shook his head. “You’re sure he’s here?”

“He told me he was going to the Haus.”

“But where else could he be?”

Derek closed his eyes and walked through his mental map of the Haus. “Have you been to the basement recently?”

Will shook his head, and wordlessly they hopped down the stairs.

Since Dex built his little basement house, the basement had gradually transformed from a den of junk and laundry to a well-appointed dungeon. Small lamps lit the newly-clean floors and the garden of indoor plants that inexplicably flourished without sunlight. Instead of hanging their damp suits from the stair railings, the team could now dry their clothes on a pair of laundry lines draped across the space. “Nice, um, gourds,” Derek said lamely, gesturing at the festive squashes on either side of the little house’s door. 

“Uh, yeah,” Will replied, awkwardly, “Farmer’s Market.” Will gave him a nervous glance. Derek didn’t know what to say. He and Dex hadn’t yet talked about the whole roommate break up, not really. They’d been skating around it. Dex seemed just as nervous to bring it up as Derek, even though the topic had been hovering in the air for weeks now, and it always got extra weird when Derek came into the basement.

Luckily, Dex opened the door to reveal Chris hunched over Dex’s desk, headphones on, staring intently at his laptop.

“C?” Derek gently touched his shoulder.

Chris started. He swiveled around with a smile that quickly turned into an expression of guilt. “Hey guys! What are you doing down here?”

“Bitty is about to burn the couch. And why haven’t you been answering my texts?”

Chris bit his lip. “Oh, well! I-uh. Um. I.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I couldn’t do it, Derek. I totally failed.”

“What do you mean? How did you fail?”

Chris’s eyes were shining now. “I tried to talk to Bitty! I really did! I stayed in the kitchen all afternoon, trying to bring it up, but every time we got close, I just freaked out!” His voice was getting thick. “I’m a fucking coward!”

“Honey, no, no, no.” Derek crouched down to press kisses to Chris’s face. Tears were sliding down his nose. “I totally get it! Bitty is our captain and low-key a terrifying human being. You tried, and I’m proud of you.” Chris gave him a watery smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Um, sorry to interrupt,” Dex interjected, “but what did you want to talk to Bitty about? Can you do it tomorrow?”

Chris heaved a sigh. “I wanted to ask him about not burning the couch and maybe just throwing it out normally instead.”

“He didn’t ask you about it first?” Dex asked incredulously, and he seemed to take Chris’s silence as a confirmation. “Jesus Christ! It’s basically your couch at this point! I’m going up there and stopping him. This is insane.”

Dex made for the door, but Chris leapt out of the swivel chair to stand in his way. “No! This is not turning into another Dex and Nursey circus.” He looked meaningfully at each of them, his cheeks red but his eyes deadly serious.

“But C, this is bullshit!” Dex pointed up toward the front lawn and the couch. “I don’t care how much he hates that couch, that doesn’t give him the right to fucking burn something you love!”

“Maybe, but that is between me and Bitty. He and I need to talk this out because if you guys do it, to him it will just be about you guys being angry again, and it won’t mean anything.”

Will and Derek exchanged a look. Derek had not volunteered to yell Bitty, but if was being honest with himself, if Dex started arguing, he would probably join in. It was basically a reflex at this point.

Derek stood up from his crouch and met Chris’s eyes. “Okay, but Dex is right—there is no ‘maybe’ about it. This is B.S. Bitty should have talked to you about this before, and honestly I really don’t like that he didn’t ask you when you spent the whole afternoon sitting in the kitchen.”

“Same,” agreed Will.

Chris’s posture softened as he realized they weren’t going to try to leave. “Yeah, I know. But that’s Bitty. He’s clueless about that kind of thing. He didn’t mean anything by it.” He slumped into the doorframe.

“That doesn’t make it okay,” Will said stoutly.

Chris gave that sweet, small smile he got when he was tired, and Derek’s heart melted. Freshman year, Chris would never have stood up to him and Dex. In a lot of ways, the two of them had walked all over him. It wasn’t until sophomore year that he really spoke up and admitted how hard it was for him to go up against their opinions. And now he was getting so good.

Above them, the sound of creaking wood and footsteps hailed the return of SMH inside the Haus. Chris’s smile faded as he looked up.

Derek stepped close and leaned his forehead into Chris’s hair. “You don’t have to go up now.” Chris had had enough for tonight.

“I’ll go up and see what’s going on.” Will was watching the ceiling as if he could see the team coming in.

Chris gave him an evaluating look. “You’re not going to yell at Bitty, right?”

Will rolled his eyes. “No, I’m not.”

“Promise?”

Will smirked. “Promise.”

Chris stepped out of the doorway and let Will pass by. When he was gone, Chris flopped his head onto Derek’s shoulder. “Why am I so tired? I did nothing today.”

“Feeling things is exhausting. I felt something once, and I had to lie down for a week.”

Chris lifted his head with a teasing smile. “So you don’t feel anything right now?” He pressed soft kisses up Derek’s neck. “Not even a little bit?”

Derek giggled. “No, nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Hmm.” Chris leaned in close, nosing at the sensitive spot under Derek’s ear. He smelled sweet and earthy, like the apples dropped from the tree. “Your heart beat says otherwise.”

Derek swallowed. He wondered how mad Will would be if they made out in his room. Probably pretty mad.

Then the door opened suddenly, and Will was standing right there in the doorway. Derek felt Chris go still against him. Will was staring like a deer in headlights. So Derek said, by way of greeting. “I could have dropped my croissant!”

Will squinted at him for a long awkward moment. “What is happening in that head of yours?”

“Am I the croissant?” asked Chris, pensively.

“I mean, you are a snack,” Derek joked.

Will rolled his eyes. “Cut the memes. You guys need to come upstairs. Weird shit is going down.”

They followed Will up the stairs to the living room that had, until recently, contained the couch.

But when they turned into the living room, the couch was there, same as always. Most of SMH was standing around it, watching the couch as if it might attack.

“You didn’t burn it?” Chris stepped forward and leaned against the couch as though testing whether it was really there.

Hops grabbed him and pulled him away. “Don’t touch it!”

“What? Why not?”

“Eric set it on fire,” Whiskey answered coolly, “But it didn’t burn.”

Hops continued in a stage whisper. “He poured gasoline all over it until it was soaked and shiny. Then he told us to cover our faces, and the next moment there was a giant FWOOM, and the couch was completely on fire. I could feel the heat on my face from the porch! We watched it burn, and we kept waiting for it to turn black, but it just never changed! And then the fire went out, and the couch was exactly the same!”

“And you carried it back inside?” Will asked skeptically.

Hops shook his head fearfully. “We were gonna leave it out there, but when we came back in, it was there!”

Chris made a strangled noise, and Hops loosened his arms. “Sorry, C.”

“It’s okay! Where’s Bitty? Is he okay?” 

The team looked up at the ceiling. Hops explained, “He kind of freaked out and ran upstairs.”

Tango piped up, “But Ford and Ollie are up there with him! So he’ll be okay.”

Chris nodded. “Still, I think I’m gonna go check on him. See you guys at practice?”

The guys all murmured variations on “see you at practice” as Chris disappeared up the stairs. Derek half-wanted to run after him and remind him that he should be mad at Bitty. But there was no way to do it without the whole team hearing, and it’s not like Chris would stop comforting Bitty because he’d burned Chris’s couch. Chris was annoyingly good like that.

They all stood in silence, watching the couch, waiting for it to do something else. Derek couldn’t see a single mark suggesting that the thing had been lit on fire. The stained green fabric was exactly as he remembered it. He thought about poking it to check if it was real, but the idea sent a shiver up his spine. He’d seen Chris lean on it. That was enough.

Will broke the silence. “You guys should get back to the dorms. It’s late.”

“We shouldn’t make Denise walk home alone, especially after that,” Whiskey protested.

“She can sleep on the other bunk in my room,” Derek replied, trying his best to sound like the authoritative upperclassman, “Go home, guys.”

The team headed out, each of them giving the couch a parting nervous glance.

Derek glanced up in the direction of Bitty’s room. Chris was up there, comforting Bitty, even though Bitty had just burned his lucky couch. “I’m going up to check on those guys.”

Will nodded. “Good idea. Text me if you need back-up.”

“Are we as bad as C thinks we are?”

“Probably worse.” Will smiled ruefully and disappeared into the basement.

Derek had climbed the Haus stairwell a million times, but tonight the dark upper landing looked more forbidding than usual, as if something might be waiting up there to jump at him. He glanced at the couch. It hadn’t moved since the rest of the team left. At least, he was pretty sure it hadn’t moved.

“Don’t follow me, Couch. I’m going to see a friend of yours,” he told the couch.

Derek climbed up the stairs. Nothing jumped out at him.

He approached Bitty’s door cautiously. He couldn’t hear anything from inside—maybe they’d all gone to bed? He gave the doorframe a knock “Hey Bitty, you alright in there?”

Bitty’s voice called lightly from inside, “Hey Nursey, come in!”

Derek opened the door to find Ollie, Ford, Bitty, and Chris sitting around Bitty’s rug, which had a pile of makeup boxes on it. Relief flooded him. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath.

Chowder looked up with a smile. All along his right cheek was a bloody makeup wound. “We’re trying out makeup for the party tomorrow!” Chris seemed genuinely content.

Bitty invited him in, but Derek made his excuses and went back to bed. Just when he was drifting off to sleep, he felt his mattress shift. Chris was back, curled up against him all warm and lovely. “Good night, cutie,” he whispered in Derek’s ear with minty breath, and Derek fell into a deep deep sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Chris loved morning practice. There was something holy about that quiet time when all of campus was asleep, and it seemed the hockey team were the only people in the world as they all walked together to the rink. In that time, as they stood sleepily in the locker room, changing and listening to Bitty explain what practice looked like that day, everything else fell away, and Chris felt his body fill with that singular purpose: hockey.

After the emotional rollercoaster of yesterday with the couch, he welcomed the steadiness of morning practice. It was still weird, of course, dressing without Nursey. It always felt like something was missing. But he’d gotten to share a groggy kiss with him that morning, and that made things better.

As he taped his stick, he got lost for a moment in the dreamy memory of Nursey grumbling, “No, no, stay, cuddly boy,” and grabbing at him with his eyes mostly closed. Even with his face full of sleep and a durag falling off his head, Nursey was the most beautiful person Chris had ever seen. And in the soft morning light, with Derek’s arms flailing limply at him, Chris could have burst with affection.

Then Bitty walked to the center of the locker room, and a sudden pang broke through Chris’s reverie as he remembered: Bitty had burned Chris’s lucky couch. Chris didn’t know if he was mad or sad or what. It wasn’t like Bitty had done anything to him directly. It just hurt every time he thought about it.

_ He didn’t mean it _ , Chris reminded himself. He took a deep breath and focused on Bitty’s plan for practice. It wasn’t Bitty’s fault that Chris’s feelings sometimes got the better of him.

Over the past months, Chris had gradually acclimatized to Bitty’s Russian figure skating drills, but this morning they felt horribly brand new again. His muscles seemed more stiff than usual as he executed tight turns under Bitty’s critical eyes. Bitty didn’t give him any critiques, but Chris rarely was the focus of skating drills—it wasn’t his area. 

He wondered if sleeping next to Nursey was making him stiff. He groaned internally. Falling asleep and waking up with Nursey was maybe the most amazing thing in the world; he didn’t want to let that go.

As they formed up into squads for a scrimmage, Dex skated up and bumped Chris with his shoulder. “You okay?” he asked in an undertone.

Chris could have burst with pride. Two years ago, Dex would never have asked that kind of question. He’d gotten so much more open with his friendship. “Yeah, I’m good!”

Dex gave him a doubtful look, but he didn’t say anything more.

Chris got in net and let himself settle in. He had Dex and Bully for his first line defense today. Dex was a great net front presence. He took the defense aspect of his job very seriously. Bully had great hands and was good at getting the puck back up the ice to the forwards. Chris could definitely understand why the coaches would pair these two. Bully’s style was similar to Nursey’s, and it was likely that later on in the season they’d be paired more often in games—better to start getting used to working together now.

Bully was not Nursey, though, so Chris needed to make sure he paid some extra attention to that side, just in case.

Coach Murray skated out to do the puck drop. Chris quickly did his last pre-game ritual, tapping each of the poles and the crossbar to wake them up, then using his skates to scratch two small X shapes under each foot for traction.

Then Ford blew the whistle, and the scrimmage was on.

For a while the puck stayed away from him and his net, bouncing around the offensive zone, but Hops broke out and carried it up the ice toward Chris. Hops was fast enough to outrace everyone else on the ice, but he favored his slapshot, and Chris caught it easily and sent it back out to Bully. After that, the back and forth was rapid. Samwell was stacked offensively and still adjusting to being down a top line defender, so play easily became a tennis match with the puck. Chris preferred to never have to stop pucks, but at least the rhythm of this kind of play was easy to follow. He always knew where the puck was.

Even so, he kept letting in easy pucks. The first one was a well-placed shot from Whiskey which he should have gotten but was pretty forgiveable. But then there was a tip-in and a 5-hole shot a minute apart, and after that it felt like he couldn’t stop anything.

He was reaching for a perfectly average rebounding puck when suddenly he realized his leg wasn’t quite positioned right, and something in his hip was pulled too far, and—“Fuck,” he said through gritted teeth There was a strange empty pain deep in his hip. He grabbed the puck, threw it down the ice, and retreated to his net.

“Chowder, are you okay?” Bully asked from the dot.

“I’m fine,” he called back.

Dex skated right up in front of the net and gave Chris a piercing gaze. “Where does it hurt, C?”

“Hip,” he gritted out, “But it’ll be fine in a minute.”

Dex’s eyebrows disappeared in to his helmet. He waved at the bench and a whistle blew. Play stopped.

“Dex, it’s fine.”

“No it fucking isn’t. Come on.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Chris didn’t want this to become a thing because if the coach said he was injured, then his suspicions would be true, and that was unthinkable.

But Dex was giving him that look of his that said, I’m-angry-because-I-genuinely-care-about-you-and-I-desperately-want-to-protect-you, and Chris was too weak to say no. He followed Dex off the ice, testing out the muscles in his hip as he skated. The pain was strange, seemingly ebbing and flowing without regard to what he did.

“If you give yourself a major injury by going too hard, I will kill you,” Dex said, giving him a squinty-eyed look.

“Throw my corpse somewhere scenic,” Chris joked, and Dex gave him a dry smile.

Bitty skated up and started with a barrage of questions that lasted until they got to the goalie coaches’ office. Audrey was the only one in at this time of the morning. She looked up, evidently surprised to see Chris, Coach Murray, and Bitty standing in her office. “Euh, what’s up?”

“Chow has a hip injury.”

She nodded soberly and gestured for Chris to get on the high examination table. She explained that her tests might take awhile, and Murray and Bitty ought to get back to practice. Chris was relieved when Bitty left without protest. If the results were bad, he didn’t want Bitty to hear his theory.

Audrey did her usual range of tests, manipulating his legs to check his flexibility, reminding him to tell her when anything hurt. Finally, after a few final tugs, she sat back in her chair.

“Looks like a pinched nerve. No ice time for a week, then we’ll reevaluate”

“You’re sure?”

“A pinched nerve is a small injury that can be fixed pretty fast with a few physical therapy sessions, but it can also cause serious damage if you push it. So take it easy on that hip.”

“What should I do about off the ice?”

“Well,” she smiled with a glint in her eye. “Tell Nurse to go easy on that hip, too.”

His jaw dropped. “How do you know?! We haven’t even told the team!”

She shrugged Frenchly. “Oh, you know.”

“I don’t know!”

She grinned. “I saw you two on a date at Annie’s. Very cute.”

She ribbed him for awhile for having a goalie-defensemen relationship. “So you fell in love with his ass first, eh?” But after a while, the creeping anxiety came back to him. 

“Audrey, I think I’ve lost my luck.”

She made a guffaw of disbelief. “One injury doesn’t mean you’ve lost your luck! Everybody gets injured. You can’t let this get to you.”

His stomach felt sick, but he forced himself to tell her the truth. “Last night, Captain Bittle set my lucky couch on fire.” Her face went suddenly humorless. “And my save percentage during the scrimmage was in the low eighties. Something is wrong with me!”

Audrey chewed her lip, staring at him with concerned eyes. He she’d seen goalies lose their touch before, and Chris wondered if he might be another one. The horrible feeling intensified.  _ We’re never going to reach the championships _ , he realized,  _ all because I was too much of a coward to talk to Bitty _ .

“Christopher,” Audrey said, interrupting his panic, “What happened to the couch.”

It took him a minute to explain that the couch had not actually burned at all, even though it had been set on fire—she kept thinking her English was failing her. When he finally convinced her that she was understanding him, her eyes lit up. “Then, you still have a chance!”

“You think?”

“I’ve known players who have had trouble with their lucky objects. A friend of mine had a lucky tree that got a tree disease during the offseason.”

“Oh, wow!”

“But she didn’t lose her luck! A lucky token is like a friend. you have to treat it with respect, and if you let it get hurt you have to ask for forgiveness.”

“What did your friend do?”

“She made sure it got healthy again, and I think she raised some of its babies in pots and took them for visits to the tree.”

Just as Chris was pondering how he might ask forgiveness from a couch, Coach’s head popped through the door. “Hey, Aud, Chow. What’s the news?”

As Audrey explained the injury to Coach, Chris tried to brainstorm nice things you could do for a couch. A tree was a lot more straightforward. It did things. A couch just sat there, getting sat on.  _ Maybe I should sit on it? _ he thought, but he quickly dismissed the idea. He sat on that couch all the time. It wouldn’t be special if he sat on it more.

“Well, Chow,” Coach turned to him, “I leave it up to you. There’s no doubt the rest would do you good, but I won’t stop you if you want to go on the road trip anyway and sit in the box. I know Nurse is sitting this one out to work on his classwork, so if you stayed you wouldn’t be alone.”

If he went on the roadie, he might bring his bad luck with him and ruin their chance of beating Princeton. If he stayed, he’d get a whole weekend to figure out how to apologize to the couch and hang out with Nursey. “I think I’ll stay, I don’t want to bring everyone bad luck.”

Coach looked like he might ask for an explanation, but he seemed to think better of it. “Okay, that’s fine. Take it easy—“

Behind his back, Audrey wagged her finger and mouthed “no rough sex.” Chris had to choke down a laugh.

“—and maybe take the extra time to watch tape. Is something wrong, Chow?”

“No,” Chris said, trying to cover his laugh with a cough.

Coach eyed him skeptically but continued, “Well, don’t get a cough either. Now gather your things and head to breakfast. Bittle and Poindexter are waiting for you.”

Chris brought his gear back to the now-empty locker room. He undressed as carefully as he could, trying not to damage his hip any further, but he desperately did not want to miss team breakfast. He’d already missed post-practice changing and walking to the dining hall.

Bitty and Dex were chatting in the lobby when Chris left the locker rooms. Bitty immediately gave him an enormous hug. “Chowder, oh honey, how is it?”

“Walking around kind of hurts, but it’s fine. I won’t skate for at least a week, though.”

Dex gave Chris a dark look as he hugged him. “If you ever say, ‘I’m fine’ after an injury again, you’re a dead man.”

They headed toward the dining hall, and Chris was glad to get to walk there with at least some of the team. Dex and Bitty told him now the rest of practice had gone and Chris explained Coach Audrey’s diagnosis.

“So, Christopher Chow,” Bitty asked in the tone of one getting down to brass tacks, “what kind of injury pie will you be having?”

“Oooh, my first injury pie!”

“Hopefully your last,” Will said darkly.

Bitty shook his head. “Not you’re first. Your freshman year, I baked you a mini pie for when you and Nursey hit your heads together getting the flour down from the tops of the cabinets.”

“I forgot!”

“That one was rhubarb. But we’re not going to find any good rhubarb at this time of year, so think about Thanksgiving-y pies or maybe apples or pears. I saw a cranberry pie recipe the other day I’ve been itching to try.”

“Bitty, how do you remember a pie you baked two years ago? That’s amazing!” Chris was often perplexed about how Bitty’s brain worked. Bitty didn’t know any of the French he’d done last year, but he could recall one pie he made on a whim two years ago.

Bitty made a thoughtful sound. “I feel like, a pie is a good way to get all your feelings out. Rhubarb is a good pie for when you’re laughing because it’s light and sharp. And I was definitely laughing at y’all.

Somewhere in Chris’s mind, a lightbulb had just gone off, but they were arriving at the dining hall, so he filed that idea away in his mind for later contemplation.

The team cheered when he, Bitty, and Dex appeared in the dining hall. They almost dogpiled him in between the tables, but Bitty called out, “Be careful! He’s still injured!” just in time. Instead they each gave him a hug. They were so sweet—they all talked about how relieved they were that he could still walk around. Even Whiskey seemed excited to see Chris up and walking around, and they shared a nice hug. Louis was a mess. He’d been the last to touch the puck before the injury, and he seemed to blame himself. Chris went through a whole cup of tea before Louis seemed somewhat convinced that he had not personally injured Chris.

When everyone had quieted down and really settled into their breakfasts, a hand squeezed Chris’s knee. He turned to see Nursey watching him with soft eyes. Chris slipped his hand under the table and twined his fingers with Nursey. At least it was easy to hold hands like this.

Nursey gave him a sly smile. “So you’re here with me for the weekend?”

“Yeah!”

“I guess we’ll get pretty bored, in the Haus all by ourselves.”

Chris laughed and leaned over to speak in Nursey’s ear. “Remind me to tell you about my meeting with Audrey.”

Nursey’s eyes sparkled. “Ooh, I love an Audrey story.”

It took all of Chris’s willpower not to kiss him right there. He settled for squeezing Derek’s hand and surreptitiously sending him some heart emojis. 

Nursey glanced at his phone and immediately spilled coffee everywhere. Chris had to help him mop it up before Nursey sent him back a screen full of hearts.

***

When Chris got back to the Haus after class, half the team was sprawled around the living room floor, doing Halloween makeup on each other. Nursey and Dex were trying to do each others’ makeup simultaneously. It wasn’t working.

“What are you guys supposed to be?”

Nursey leaned back contemplatively and stroked his five o’ clock shadow. “I’m attempting to use my subject’s natural pallor and Titian hair to create a vivid harlequinscape drawing on the farcical tradition to make a statement on the truth of comedy.”

Chris took a careful look at the blotches of red and blue on Dex’s face. “He’s a...clown?”

Nursey broke character to laugh. “Exactly! You really understand my muse.”

Dex grimaced. “I was just trying to make Nurse less good looking.”

Nursey did his sexy Instagram face. He still caught the light like a Renaissance sculpture.

Chris plopped down on the ground. “You both suck.”

Nursey gasped theatrically and stuck his nose up in the air. “You just don’t understand my ART.” Dex sighed and turned slightly pink.

“Aw, Dexy-” Chris ruffled Dex’s hair, “-those cheekbones have conquered greater makeup artists than you.”

Dex just got pinker. He pushed Chris’s hand off his head. “Don’t patronize me.”

Nursey leaned back against the wall with a lazy smile that made Chris’s heart beat faster. “So, what are we doing on this night of fake Halloween?”

Dex pursed his lips. “I mean, you two will be here tomorrow for real Halloween. We don’t have to do anything.”

“Dexy, it wouldn’t be Frog Halloween without you! We  _ have _ to do something before you go!” Chris gave Dex’s leg a light kick. He hated when his guys got down on themselves. “So that only leaves the question, which party are we feeling?”

Chris’s bad luck, it seemed, also spread to finding good parties. The first party they tried had keg stands already happening at nine o’ clock. (“Fuck Friday classes, I guess,” commented Nursey as they left.) The second one wasn’t a Halloween party. (Chris was perplexed. “How joyless do you have to be to throw a regular party the night before Halloween?”) The third party had a fight going on by the bar. (Dex shook his head. “Don’t fight in front of the bar—no one can drink while they watch you.”)

They walked vaguely down Frat Row, but the spirit was gone. Nursey’s costume was covered in beer, Chris could feel himself sobering up, and Dex was on a rant about...something.

“Guys,” Chris interrupted Dex’s ramble, “do you want to go back to the Haus and just, like, watch a movie or something? This sucks.”

“Yes,” Nursey and Dex replied in chorus.

They walked back to the Haus. The vibe was still miserable. Chris felt so annoyed. He hated when good Frog time got ruined. Everything had been so tense ever since Dex moved out of Lardo’s old room that it was sometimes hard to hang out all together. Everything had been good these past couple days, and it was too frustrating that they couldn’t manage to have a fun Halloween when it should have been so easy.

He searched around for something they could do to make this night fun again. “Do you guys wanna…” he racked his brain, “get candy for the movie? Make it really Halloween?”

“Ooh, I’ve got enough in my stash to make us up a couple blunts,” Derek mused. “And we should get extra candy for trick-or-treaters!”

“Kids don’t trick-or-treat on Frat Row, Nurse.”

“Let me dream, William. Just get me a bag of kit kats, okay?”

“You’re not coming?!”

“Poindexter, I’m covered in beer. I’m not going to Stop & Shop soaked to the skin.”

They debated all the way back to Dex’s truck, but in the light, casual way that simply meant the evening was back on track. When they sighted the truck, though, Nursey suddenly changed tack.

“You know what, Poindexter, maybe I should come with. Those seats are so absorbent, they’d dry me off right away.”

Dex let out a strangled noise. “Not on your life, Nurse. If you so much as touch my car—”

Nursey took the opportunity to run forward and wipe his wet sleeve across the hood of the car, then he sprinted into the Haus, laughing like a maniac.

Dex straight up sputtered, and Chris had to lean on a tree to stop himself from falling over laughing.

Dex turned to him in outrage. “Did you see that? Is he a child?” He looked so angry, steam may have actually been pouring out of his ears.

“You look like Elmer Fudd!” Chris choked out between laughs. “Oh my god, I can’t breathe.”

When Chris finally got his act together and stood up, Will deadpanned, “What did I do to deserve this? Why can’t I have dignity?”

“Come on, let’s get you some candy. You can eat your self-pity.”

“That sounds nice.”

They returned from the Murder Stop & Shop weighed down with candy and enough food for a small army. Dex had insisted on buying food, on the grounds that Chris shouldn’t leave the Haus this weekend, but he was pretty sure this haul would feed him for weeks. 

Nursey was waiting for them in the kitchen, awkwardly giving his hair twists with one hand and watching youtube. “What took you so long? I learned so much about octopuses while you were gone.”

“Dex lost his mind in Stop & Shop.”

“Fitting.” Nursey nodded.

“Also, I thought they were octopodes?”

Nursey gave Chris a private smile that made his heart leap. Nursey was so good at taking his breath away by surprise. With him, any moment could suddenly turn on its axis and become something entirely new. With a small smile, he’d sent Chris floating away on a wave of feeling.

“So, what are we going to watch?” Will dumped the last bags of groceries on the floor, apparently unaware he was in the middle of a moment.

Chris didn’t have any strong opinion, so he let Dex and Nursey hash out the movie and focused on putting groceries away. It was then his eyes lit on the couch, and inspiration hit. “Guys, can we watch the movie on the green couch?” 

There was a pause.

“The, um, green couch?” asked Nursey.

“Yeah.”

“The couch that Bitty couldn’t burn with gasoline and walked itself back inside?” asked Dex emphatically. “That one?”

“There is nothing wrong with the couch!”

“It’s haunted,” retorted Dex.

“How would you know that?!”

“It teleported!”

Chris sighed with frustration. “That doesn’t make it a bad couch!”

“Okay,” ceded Nursey, “but why do you want to watch scary movies on a maybe haunted couch? That seems like asking for trouble.”

“Well…” Chris swallowed. Both of them were watching him, Nursey with a bemused expression, Dex with skepticism verging on outrage. Chris could see no way out of this but to tell them the truth. “I need you guys to keep a secret. From the team.”

Nursey and Dex exchanged a look. Even though they’d been fighting constantly this semester and weren’t playing together, their Defense partner mind-reading had only been getting stronger.

“Of course, baby.”

“C, you can tell us anything.”

Chris closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay. So, this morning, I could hardly stop any pucks, right?”

Dex shrugged politely.

“And I felt all stiff, and I got injured. All the night after my lucky nap couch got burned.”

“Oh, shit,” whispered Nursey.

“Basically, I’m pretty sure I’ve lost my luck. And the only way I can get it back is to be nice to the couch and try to get it to forgive me.”

Will raised one ginger eyebrow. “Um, what? You didn’t do anything! Bitty burned the couch! It’s not fair for you to have to ask for its forgiveness.”

“According to Coach Audrey, that’s how it works! It doesn’t matter if it’s ‘fair.’”

“Dex, this is deep goalie lore,” interjected Nursey, “we need to help, no matter what.”

Dex turned to Nursey furiously, but they did one of their mind-reading things, and Dex seemed to give in. “Okay, but if we’re watching on the couch we’re not watching anything scary.”

“ _ Nightmare Before Christmas _ it is!” Nursey leapt to his feet, then immediately fell into Chris. Chris barely caught him, and tumbled into Dex, and Dex fell backward into the living room, and they all ended up crashing into the green couch.

“We made it!” Chris exclaimed. Dex groaned.

Nursey laughed, staggering to his feet. “Now that’s what I call an auspicious start!”

***

Chris woke, cautiously hopeful that everything might be fixed. Maybe now that he’d spent some quality time with the couch, he’d bounce out of bed fully healed and go on the roadie.

But as he climbed out of bed, he knew it couldn’t be that easy. His hip was still full of pain, and it felt like a dark cloud was floating above him, perhaps even more than yesterday. The bad luck was still with him. He’d need to keep working on it.

After class, he and Nursey went to Faber to see the team off, but he wished he’d mad ean excuse not to go. It was torture to watch the rest of the team get hype to play Princeton while knowing he wasn’t going with them. Or perhaps it would only be worse to be with them knowing he wouldn’t play.

He distracted himself from his misery by helping Ford keep everything organized. It was fun, learning the precise packing scheme Lardo designed for the bus and playing tetris with all the supplies. When they finished packing, they stood back to admire their work.

“I can’t believe that all fit! Managers are magical!”

“Thanks, Chowder.” Ford gave him a tight hug. “I know injuries are awful, but you know everything will get better, right? You’ll heal and get right back to killing it on the ice.

Chris’s eyes stung as he hugged her back. He should’ve known she’d see through him—she knew athletes so well. She was so kind, but savvy, and she worked so hard at everything she did. And she gave great hugs.

But as she gave him an extra squeeze, fear slipped in underhis ribs.  _ What if I fail? _ She was so sure of him, but she didn’t know the full story. She didn’t know there was a real danger that he would never get his luck back again. That he might lose the team forever.

Coach Hall called over to them. “Denise, we all packed up?”

Ford let go. Chris pasted a smile on his face, hoping she didn’t notice the brightness in his eyes. He didn’t want her worrying about him all the way to Princeton.

She gave Chris one last squeeze on his arm before she jogged up to the bus. As the last of the players climbed in, Nursey sidled up to Chris. He casually laid an arm across Chris’s shoulders and gave him a little squeeze. Chris could have cried with relief. As long as Nursey was here, nothing could be too bad. Chris desperately wanted to cling to Nursey and sob his fears into Nursey’s chest, but he settled for lifting his injured leg and rubbing their ankles together. Nursey gave him another squeeze.

They waved and called good luck as the bus started up and drove off, but as soon as the bus turned the corner. “Remind me to never stay behind on a roadie again. That was the worst thing I’ve ever done. Including Advanced Poetry.”

Chris turned and hugged him tight, finally burying his face in the soft fabric of Nursey’s sweater. “Same,” he said, not even trying to keep the sob out of his voice. It was all becoming too real. In the horrible quiet, it was easier than ever to imagine how lonely life would be like without SMH.

“Oh, honey, baby. What—what’s up?”

“Derek, what if I never get my luck back?”

“What? Of course you’ll get your luck back.”

“Lot’s of goalies lose their luck forever! My coaches have stories!”

Nursey’s arms tightened around him. “Chris, don’t—don’t talk like that. You will get it back. I’m sure. I know it.”

“But if I don’t, then I’ll never be our starting goalie again, and even if I’m a backup, I’ll suck! What if they throw me off the team?! No more practices, no more games, no more roadies ever again!”

“No! If we have to spend the whole weekend hanging out with the couch, then we will. But we’re going to get your luck back, okay?” Nursey’s voice was starting to shake. Chris raised his head to find Nursey blinking tears out of his eyes.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m such a bad boyfriend!”

“No, no, no—not even a little bit. You’re so wonderful. You’re so good. I—” Nursey bit his lip and blinked. A tear rolled down his cheek. He wiped it away roughly. “I like you so much. I always want to hear how you feel.”

For a moment, Chris was so full of feeling, all he could do was press his forehead into Nursey’s. He pulled away to brush away the tear track Nursey had missed with his sleeve, and said, “But you’re the most wonderful.”

Before Nursey could contradict him, he continued, “Now I’m hankering after that big pile of candy. You?”

“That sounds nice.” Derek glanced around at the mostly empty campus around them. Friday afternoons were always strangely quiet around Samwell. “Can we hold hands?”

Chris felt that same burst of anxiety as the last time he and Nursey walked holding hands. In a lot of ways, it had not been until then that he realized how different dating Nursey was. Chris had lived his whole life as a hockey bro, protected by his sport from many kinds of cruelty. Now he was giving that up and exposing himself.

Rationally, of course, he knew he was safe. This was “1-in-4 maybe more” Samwell. He was not in danger. But the fear lingered.

Nursey was looking at him so hopefully, though, and Chris did desperately want to hold his hand. Eventually he had to get used to this at some point. “Yeah—I’d like that.”

Nursey practically glowed with happiness, but all he said was usual, restrained, “Chill.”

The only sign on the way back to the Haus that Nursey might be thinking about the fact that they were holding hands was that he tripped slightly more than usual. Chris couldn’t shake his nerves. All the way, he kept noticing people noticing them. A lot of them were Derek Nurse fans. Several of them visibly deflated upon seeing them. Some people gave them big encouraging smiles. Others just looked and looked away, giving no sign of how they felt about a Black guy and an Asian guy holding hands. Those ones frightened him the most. He knew they had to think of something—it wasn’t like he and Nursey were an average sitcom couple. Did they wish they’d hide themselves? Did they think they were weird? Did they hate them?

But holding hands with Nursey was wonderful. It was lovely to do a couple thing, walking around coupled together! And there was something satisfying about being the one on the arm of the Derek Nurse, watching all the people and realize Nursey had chosen him among all the people who adored him.

As soon as they started up Smash—one of Nursey’s suggestions for making amends with the couch—Chris could feel the adrenaline crash. “Fuck, Derek, I’m so tired. I don’t think I’m up for Smash.”

“Did you sleep badly?”

“Nah, I just all of a sudden feel like I’m gonna keel over.”

Nursey nodded sagely. “You had lots of feelings today. Feelings tire a body out.”

“Is that really a thing?”

“I think so? Anyway, we can still hang out with the couch. We could nap instead. You do that sometimes.”

Chris yawned. Wow, he really needed that nap. “Can I be the little spoon?”

Nursey gave him his most radiant smile. “Of course.”


	3. Chapter 3

Derek walked into Faber to the roar of a crowd. The Falcs were playing some yellow team. His parents were calling him over to sit with them, but right behind them, Richard from the golf team was grinning at him. In fact, the whole row behind his parents was full of Derek’s exes. He skated away as fast as he could. Finally, he got to the locker rooms. He opened the locker room to find all of SMH changing. Chris was at his locker, full recovered. Derek rushed over to kiss him, but he noticed that something was wrong with his own locker. INstead of being empty, it was covered in caution tape. A sign on it read, DON’T COME BACK, WE DON’T WANT YOU. He looked at Chris, who was shaking his head. “Sorry Nursey. You can’t come back. Nobody wants you.” 

_ But what about you? _

“I don’t want you either.”

Something went bang. Derek woke up; he was still wrapped around Chris on the green couch. The golden light of sunset was turning the living room orange.

He pressed his nose into Chris’s neck, squeezing his eyes shut and tried to push the dream from his head. He’d never appreciated living in a rickety, noisy old building so much as right now. He half-wished that the sound had woken up Chris as well, but he was a sound sleeper, and he needed rest. Today had been hard for him, too. Derek closed his eyes and tried to focus on how cozy he was, pressed between Chris’s back and the couch, his ankles twined with Chris’s feet, their fingers laced together.

Except, now that he was focusing, he couldn’t help but notice that there were other sounds coming from inside the house, but not the clanking old pipes or creaking of a wooden foundation. There were footsteps, and something that sounded like...music?

“Chris, Chris, wake up! I think someone is inside the Haus.”

Chis nodded sleepily. “Uh-huh. We’re inside the Haus.”

“No, someone else. Listen.”

“Oh!” Chris raised his head. “Oh, shit, you’re totally right!”

“What should we do?”

Chris stared at him with a sleepy smile. “Your hair’s flat on that side.” Chris brushed his fingers across Derek’s temple.

Derek pecked a kiss to Chris’s wrist. “You’re sweet and sexy and I adore you, but also someone else in the Haus.”

“Fuck! Um, I mean it doesn’t seem like robbers? Why would they play music? We’re right here! Maybe Bitty just left his boombox on. We should check it out.” 

“Okay, but we should put on shoes in case we have to run for it.”

Chris smiled gorgeously. “Gosh, you’re so smart.”

They crept up the stairs slowly and carefully, trying not to make the wood squeak. Derek didn’t totally succeed, but it didn’t seem to affect the sounds coming from upstairs. Perhaps it really was Bitty’s boombox.

But when they got to the top of the stairs, there was light shining through the crack under Bitty’s door.

“Maybe he left the light on, too?” Chris asked apprehensively.

However, there was now the sound of people talking from inside Bitty’s room. It almost sounded like a whole crowd of people.

Chris and Derek moved slowly down the hall, but the closer they got, the more sure Derek was that no one inside that room could hear them. Music was playing loudly, people were talking and laughing. It sounded like someone was throwing a party in Bitty’s room.

“What the hell is going on in there?!” Chris whispered in Derek’s ear.

Derek shrugged. Even standing right outside Bitty’s room, he still could not make sense of what was going on in there. Cautiously, he stepped forward and pushed open the door.

Inside, at least twenty people were standing in small groups, laughing and holding cups of beer. Music was pumping, and the lights were dimmed. There was a party happening in Bitty’s room.

Except, it wasn’t Bitty’s room. The bed was in the wrong spot, and none of Bitty’s decor was up. Instead, shiny Greek letters and concert posters covered the walls. The room itself was the same—all the walls and doors were in the right places—but clearly someone else lived here.

Chris looked back at him with eyes as big as saucers. “What the fuck?!” he whispered.

Derek shrugged. “I have no idea.”

Chris pulled out his phone. “I’m going to text Bitty and ask what he knows about this. Maybe he just didn’t tell us there was going to be a party in his room?”

“A party where they rearrange his furniture?” Derek asked while Chris snapped a picture.

Suddenly Chris froze. “Derek,” he said in a choked whisper, “Derek!” he held up the phone for Derek to see. It was on camera mode, looking into Bitty’s room. Bitty’s normal room.

Derek glanced past the phone. A party was still going on beyond the screen. But on Chris’s phone, all he could see was Bitty’s empty room, looking totally normal, the bed back in its usual spot by the window, a stack of recipe books on the desk. “What happens when you take a picture?”

Chris snapped a picture. The photo was of Bitty’s room, with no sign of anybody in there.

“Are they just...not there?” Derek stepped up to the doorway, as if he might be able to see better.

Before Chris answered him, a smiling white girl with long blonde hair called over to them, “Hey, don’t be shy! We’ve got punch up here!”

Derek was too stunned to reply, but luckily Chris had his wits about him. “What’s going on?”

The blonde girl laughed. “Oh! You’re so sweet. The noise was just Amanda knocking over the lamp! Nothing to worry about!”

“Sandy, don’t tell everyone that! It’s embarrassing!” Another blonde white girl, probably Amanda, was looking at the first girl with a look of faux outrage. She smiled at Chris and Derek. “Are you guys transfers? I’ve never seen you before, and I’d definitely remember.” She shot them a wink.

Chris hissed in his ear. “She’s sitting on the couch!”

Derek looked more closely and realized that Amanda was sitting on a green couch that looked remarkably similar to their green couch. It was definitely the right shape and size, though the upholstery was far nicer, with almost no stains and generally pretty new-looking.

“We can get to know each other now, if you want,” Amanda continued, her smile widening, evidently misinterpreting Derek’s stare. But Derek was too distracted by the poster above her head to respond. It was a Boyz II Men tour poster with all the members in baggy ‘90s outfits. It looked brand new. He glanced around the room briefly. Every single poster was from at least twenty years ago, and everyone at the party was dressed like they just walked out of  _ Beverly Hills, 90210 _ .

“I’m sorry—we need to talk to somebody,” he said to no one in particular before grabbing Chris’s wrist and pulling him into the hallway.

“What’s up?” Chris asked as they reached the top of the stairs.

“Every single poster in that room was from decades ago. It had a Boyz II Men poster where they’re all teenagers!”

Chris stared at the door, still standing slightly ajar, the sound of Prince still floating into the hallway. “So it’s a retro party?”

“Those posters all look brand new, and no one has ever thrown a party where everyone followed the dress code. I think it’s from when this place used to be a sorority. They definitely seemed like sorority girls.”

“So, that party happened in the past?!”

“I think so? That would explain why the couch looked so much better in there.”

Chris gasped. “You’re totally right! It looked brand new!”

“Well, that might be overstating things.”

Chris waved his hand. “So then they’re, like, spirits! But all those people can’t be dead, can they?”

Derek had no idea. If they were from the 90s, then those people would at most be in their fifties. They could be dead, but it didn’t make a ton of sense. “Why are they spending the afterlife at a sorority party? And why has Bitty never noticed there are twenty people partying in his room? Ransom knew about Jenny and Mandy.”

“But Holster didn’t.” Chris’s eyes lit up. “Jenny and Mandy! We could ask them!”

“You can’t just talk to Jenny and Mandy! Ransom never even saw them.”

“It’s Halloween! The day all the dead return. If there’s any day we can talk to them, this is it!” Chris pulled down the ladder to the attic and climbed up to stick his head in. “Jenny? Mandy?” You there?”

There was no response. Chris climbed down, looking a little disappointed. Derek squeezed his hand. “Maybe they can’t talk until night time? I think that’s when the ghosts come out.”

“Then who are the people at the sorority party? How they can they be there if ghosts wait until after dark? It doesn’t make sense!”

Derek had no explanation, but he was immediately distracted from the issue when he realized there was a light coming from inside his room. “Fuck, there’s someone in my room!”

They didn’t have to open the door to figure out what was happening in this one. Two women were making very passionate, happy sounds that filtered clearly into the hallway.

Derek and Chris exchanged a look.

“How about we go downstairs?” asked Chris lightly, though Derek could see a tinge of pink on his cheeks.

“Good idea.”

They walked downstairs more slowly than they’d run up it—Chris needed to protect his hip—only to find another party raging in the living room.

This was a much more familiar scene than they’d found upstairs, though. It seemed like they’d walked into an SMH kegster, though it was definitely from some time ago. The sound system was playing songs Derek remembered from middle school. Otherwise, it was much the same as their usual kegsters. People were playing beer pong in the dining room, a crowd was dancing in the living room, and drinks were being served from the kitchen.

Then a familiar voice floated over the crowd, “Jack Zimmermann, you beautiful man! Dance with me! Get that incredible ass on the dance floor!”

Over the heads of the crowd, Derek could see Shitty yelling at Jack, and Derek felt a little more at ease. These weren’t weird sorority girls—these were his friends, even though Jack looked so much younger, with his long hair, and Shitty still had his short Andover cut.

Then it hit him. This was Freshman Shitty, who knew Derek as an awkward highschooler, not an awkward college kid. He murmured in Chris’s ear, “We can’t let Shitty see me—he’ll recognize me!”

“You’re right! Oh my gosh! Um, wanna watch beer pong?” He led the way through the crowd toward the pong table, whispering, “Jack looks like such a baby?! It’s so weird!”

“Yeah, and Shitty’s moustache is such a mess! I never saw him growing it out. It’s terrible.”

Chris grimaced. “It gives new meaning to pornstache.”

They sidled up to the pong table. Derek recognized the players as members of the hockey team from several generations ago. He’d seen their pictures in Faber. He was pretty sure one of them—the white dude with the long, curling brown flow—had been captain, a guy to whom Shitty referred exclusively as “that fucker.” Derek wondered if coming over here had been a mistake.

He didn’t have to wonder for long. “You two gonna play?” The captain turned to them with a sneer.

“Um, we weren’t planning on it,” Chris replied, with remarkable composure, given how the guy was looking at them.

The guy snorted. “Oh, are you  _ together _ ?” he snarked.

Chris’s mouth fell open, apparently speechless, but Derek covered for him. “We’ll play, and we’ll kick your asses.”

The guy laughed harshly. “Okay. You can have Zimmermann and Knight’s spot. Save us the trouble of tracking them down.”

He and Chris took the spot on the opposite side of the table. Chris asked in Derek’s ear, “Wasn’t that guy captain?” Derek nodded, and Chris gave the guy a look of violent dislike. 

“Hey, at least we get to save Jack from playing beer pong,” Derek reminded him.

He and Chris weren’t amazing at beer pong, but Lardo had taught them, so they weren’t bad. And when the captain and his partner dunked their first ball, Derek downed the cup of beer only to discover it disappeared in his mouth.

With the advantage of staying sober, he and Chris easily dominated their opponents. It was extremely satisfying to watch this asshole of a captain become totally confused by how they drank cup after cup without effect.

Then there was a chorus of screams from the doorway, and somebody yelled, “is that Kent Parson?”

Derek’s eyes flashed to Jack. Whatever he’d been drinking, he’d just spilled all over himself and the couch, which was now the degree of nasty Derek remembered. Next to Jack, Shitty was freaking out just as much as anyone else, totally unaware of Jack freaking out next to him.

Chris squeezed Derek’s shoulder. “I’ve got Jack. Meet you by the supply closet?”

Derek was hit with another wave of adoration for Chris Chow, as he watched Chris walk over to Jack and crouch down to talk to him. He was so good, it was almost painful not to yell, _ I love you _ as he helped Jack to his feet.

Then Derek remembered what he was supposed to be doing. He pushed through the crowd, which was surprisingly easy given the number of people. He opened the supply closet by the basement door to find no cleaning supplies except for one half-used roll of paper towels. He shuddered to think how gross the Haus had been before Bitty.

“Hey, Derek,” came Chris’s voice, even more bright than usual, “this is Jack! He’s a freshman at Samwell!”

Derek turned to see a miserable-looking Jack Zimmermann with apple juice on his pants. “Hi Jack! Nice to meet you. My boyfriend told me someone needed drying off, so I found some paper towels.”

“Wow, I didn’t even know we had cleaning supplies,” Jack mumbled.

Derek saw Chris’s mouth, “Yikes!” behind Jack’s back and had to force down his laughter.

When Jack was a little less wet, Chris asked him, “Is everything okay with you? You seem a little stressed out.”

Jack shrugged. For a long moment they were quiet, listening to people fawn over Kent Parson. “Euh. My ex showed up at the party when I wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.”

“#Relatable.” Derek nodded sagely.

Jack gave Derek a confused look. “What?”

“I’m sorry Jack, that sucks!” Chris gave Jack a big smile, the kind of smile that was like warm soup on a cold day. “You are allowed to keep your distance and not give them any special attention, okay? You don’t owe them anything.”

Jack thought for a minute, his old stare exactly as Derek knew it. Jack gave Chris a small smile. “Thanks. I better go find Shitty. He needs someone to look out for him.” Jack disappeared into the party.

“That was so heartwarming, baby.” Derek nudged Chris’s shoulder.

“It was. But I’m tired of this party.”

“Wanna check out what’s happening in the basement?”

“I hope this one has somewhere comfy to sit.”

“Is your hip worse?”

“Not worse, just annoying.”

Derek inched open the door to the basement. From what he could see, this looked like another sorority party, but this one was almost exclusively girls. “Chris, it’s a sorority party—all girls. I don’t think we can go down.”

“Can we just sit on the stairs, then?”

As quietly as they could, they slipped inside the door and sat on the top step of the basement stairs. None of the sorority girls seemed to notice them.

Chris sighed with relief as he sat down. “That feels better. Wow, this place is super nice!”

The basement was decked out with thick carpets and multicolored lamps. The furniture was arranged elegantly around a TV. A bookcase full of videotapes and cassette decks stood at the bottom of the stairs. Everything was perfectly color-coordinated.

This party was far more chill. It was mostly just sorority women sitting together and chatting. What sounded like a mixtape was playing from the sound system.

Chris leaned into Derek’s shoulder. He pressed his face into Chris’s hair. Derek let himself absorb the calm vibes of the sorority party. Chris’s hair was soft and warm and smelled of sunshine.

“I feel so bad for Jack!” Chris whispered, “Freshman year must have been so hard for him.”

“I can’t even imagine.” When Derek arrived at Samwell, Bitty and Shitty had been the ones to give them the tour. The message had been (in a somewhat aggressive, Shitty way) that queer identities were accepted on the hockey team. And even at Andover, Derek had only ever known the post-Shitty hockey team, which definitely wasn’t perfect, but he’d never felt actively unsafe there.

Chris hooked their arms together. “My high school team could be like that sometimes. I applied to Samwell because I thought it’d be different, and it was! I would be so awful to come here and get more of the same.”

Derek squeezed Chris’s arm and kissed his head. In a lot of ways, that part of Derek’s life had been pretty simple. His parents had always been open about their identities, and he’d had lots of queer teachers. And even though coming out was awkward as hell, kids still came out at his school all the time. Derek had always assumed that growing up in the Bay Area would be similar, but he’d never asked. “Did you know, in high school?”

“Know what?”

“That you were into guys.”

Chris shrugged. “Kind of? Sometimes I got crushes on guys. My freshman English teacher was so adorable, and there was a guy in a couple of my math classes. But I didn’t really think about it like that. I didn’t even figure out until college that those were crushes. All the other guys were talking about girls. So I only seriously thought about girls.” He looked at Derek nervously. “Is that bad?”

“No, of course not! Everyone’s different. I only thought about it because my parents talk about their queerness a lot.”

Chris nodded thoughtfully. “My parents never talk about their dating lives before each other. I don’t know what they’re going to think about...me.”

Derek gave him a squeeze. “They seem pretty cool.”

“Yeah. They’ll probably be fine? I guess I’m more worried about my grandparents. They grew up in China, and they don’t really understand this stuff.”

Derek was lucky. His parents had headed that off for him in a big way. Both of his parents had been openly queer for years before they had him. They’d taught his family a lot and kept him at a distance from the less-accepting branches of their family tree. “What do old Chinese people think about the queers?”

Chris bit his lip. “They’re just, sort of, cut off from a lot of American culture? The Asian community is kind of insular, and even though they live in San Francisco, they’ve never really interacted with gay people. I feel like, old white people just, know more about it? Even though they’re conservative, too?”

“Yeah. A lot of Black people think that being gay is a white people thing.”

“Yeah? What happens when they meet you and your mom?”

“I mean, she married a white person, and I’m pretty light, so I think a lot of them just write us off as white people who look Black—or Black people trying to be white? I don’t know.” He could vividly recall the skeptical look Jason’s dad gave them on parent-teacher meeting day. It still made him cringe with embarrassment.

“I’m sorry! You don’t have to talk about it. I just wanted to say—I still have so much to figure out.” Chris leaned into Derek. “So much of this is new for me.”

“Yeah, baby. Of course. No one is expecting you to know everything the moment you start dating a guy. It takes time.”

“Thanks, Derek.”

They sat quietly together, listening to the jaunty late-90s music, until two girls started walking up the stairs toward them.

“Shit! Nursey, give me a hand!”

Derek was halfway through pulling Chris to his feet when one of the girls called, “Wait, Chowder, Nursey, can you see us?!”

Derek and Chris exchanged a shocked look. Were those girls who Derek thought they were?

“Are you Jenny and Mandy, from the attic?” Chris asked.

“Totally!” they replied in chorus.

“My name is Jenny Lin!” Said the girl on the right, who looked like a very much alive East Asian girl in her late teens.

The girl on the left, who was white with long blonde hair, did a twirl in mid-air. “And I’m Mandy Agostino!”

“But what are you doing down here? Don’t you guys live in the attic?”

“We’re here for the party, duh!” Jenny waved at the sorority girls. Several waved back.

“Wait, so are they ghosts, too?” Chris sat back down on the stairs, and Derek followed him.

Mandy shook her head. “I don’t think so! We’ve never seen them around before, and none of them seem to know it’s not 2000!”

“They don’t even know who Westlife are!” added Jenny.

Derek didn’t know who Westlife were either, but he thought it best not to mention it. “If they’re not ghosts what’s up with all the people around the Haus?”

Jenny shrugged. “We have no idea! This has never happened before.”

A sudden cry broke the pleasant ambience of the party. “Veronica, I got this dress yesterday! And now it’s ruined!”

“Oh, Suse, I’m so sorry!”

Mandy sank into the stairs to get a look at the distressed sorority girls. “We should go help out. Catch you guys later!”

Jenny winked. “Tell Justin we miss him.”

They waved and disappeared down the stairs. 

“Maybe we should leave before someone else notices us crashing a sorority party.” Derek pressed his ear to the door. “Sounds like the SMH party is over.”

He helped Chris to his feet and they opened the door just a smidge. All trace of the party was gone. The Haus seemed back to normal. Bitty’s curtains were up, the floor was clean, and the chore chart was on the wall. It looked exactly as they’d left it when they went upstairs to investigate the first party, though darker now the sun was nearly gone.

“Maybe it’s over?” whispered Chris. “No more ghost-y things?”

Then a very familiar southern accent floated in from the living room. “Jack Laurent Zimmermann, don’t you dare!”

They snuck down the hall and peeked into the living room. There, in the dim light of the setting sun they could see Jack sitting on the green couch, playfully pulling Bitty toward him. “I thought you liked sitting on me.”

“I do, but not when you’re sitting on that!” laughed Bitty.

“Haha. It’s not so bad. You don’t have to touch it. I promise.”

Bitty squirmed away, though keeping himself within reach of Jack’s arms. However, as Jack reached to grab Bitty again, he elbowed the bottle of gatorade on the side table.

“Oh, sweetpea! It’s all over you! Let me get you some paper towels.”

Quicker on the uptake than Derek, Chris grabbed his shirt and pulled him down the hall, out of sight of Bitty walking to the kitchen. “Maybe we should keep going upstairs. I don’t want to see Bitty and Jack making out.”

They settled down against the wall at the top of the stairs. “That was so cute. I can’t handle it.” Chris bent his leg back, seeming to test his hip. “But I still don’t understand why this is happening.”

“Halloween?”

“But why this Halloween? If it had happened before, Jenny and Mandy would know!”

“Hmm.” Derek leaned back against the wall. He thought. There were three stars outside the window at the end of the hall. Even though they were alone now, Derek could feel the Haus around them teeming with energy and life—or maybe that was his imagination. “Maybe the Haus just wants to share?”

“What do you mean?”

“These are things that happened in the Haus. The sorority and SMH. Maybe the Haus wants us to know about them.”

“But why?”

“It’s lonely to remember something alone.”

Chris did not respond—he looked at Derek, but Derek didn’t look back. He looked at those three stars. Those stars had seen many things in this hallway, though they had never been here. He wondered if they were lonely. But they had each other.

“Nursey—!” Chris said in an alarmed whisper, “My room! The light is on!”

It took Derek a moment to process what Chris had said. He stared at the door for a moment, registering that a light was shining under Chris’s door. “Someone is in your room?”

“The people from the past! We have to go see—they’re in my room!” Chris rose to his feet, and Derek followed him.

“Your hip—is it okay?”

“Oh! Yeah, it’s okay. And we’re not going far.” At the end of the hallway, Chris grabbed his room’s door knob emphatically. “Gonna see what my room used to be!” He opened it, stuck his head in, and immediately dove back into the hallway, slamming the door closed. He clung to the opposite wall, staring at his door in horror.

“Chris? What’s wrong? Is there something bad in there?”

  
  


“No! No. Just-” he turned to gaze at Derek, wide-eyed, “-my parents are in there!”

“Your parents?”

Chris nodded vigorously. “They must have come here when they were in grad school! But I have no idea why they’d be here. It was still a sorority back then!”

“Should we...talk to them?”

Chris stared at him blankly. “Talk to them?”

“I dunno. Might be cool?”

“Also super weird! My mom might be pregnant with me! In my college dorm room.”

“That is definitely very weird. But it seems like maybe the Haus wants us to see them?”

Chris gave him a pleading look. “You think so?”

“Why else would your parents be in your room?”

Chris sighed. “I’m discovering the downsides to having a smart boyfriend. You’re totally right.”

They stood in silence for a moment. Derek wondered if he should just drop it altogether. They didn’t have to talk to Chris’s parents. Maybe he was pushing Chris too far.

But before he could say anything, Chris gave him a smile and asked, “Can you go first?”

Derek slipped into the room, trying not to be seen. Luckily, everyone was pretty distracted. It looked like some kind of board game night was happening. Everyone was gathered in small groups around boards or decks of cards. The room wasn’t a bedroom, more like a study room, with tables and the green couch, looking young again, against one wall.

He scanned the room, trying to figure out who was supposed to be at this party. It was definitely a sorority party—he could see numerous women in gear decked out with Greek letters. But the other people were hard to identify. They might have been slightly older than the sorority girls, generally, but it was hard to tell.

Then an East Asian man with an extremely friendly smile waved to him. “Hey! You want to join? We’re starting a new game!”

The man was unmistakably David Chow, looking much younger than when Derek last saw him at parents’ weekend. “Um, yeah. Thanks”

“Great! Don’t sit on that spot though, someone just spilled beer there!”

Derek sat on the green couch to join their card game. He tried to listen as David Chow explained the rules, but Derek was distracted by the woman across from him. It had always been obvious Chris took after his mom, though he had his dad’s smile. But it was an entirely different thing to see a woman who could have been Chris’s twin sitting across from him.

She reached out her hand. “Hi, I’m Irene.” 

“Derek. Um, what brings you to the party?”

“I’ve been teaching introduction to computer science to Evie and Cheyenne.”

“I’m so sorry, how rude of me! I’m David! I’m a TA for Diana’s stats class! What do you teach?!”

“Uh, Freshman English.”

“Wow!”

Irene smiled serenely. “It must be challenging to teach a class that all undergrads take. Do you enjoy it?”

Derek had a brief flashback to his own freshman English class, which had been totally silent for the first two weeks of class. “It can be challenging, sometimes.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Derek saw Chris standing against the wall awkwardly, just as Derek had done a minute ago. He turned and gave Chris a wave. “Hey babe, over here.”

Chris visibly swallowed, but he smiled and walked over to their table. “Hi, I’m Chris, Derek’s boyfriend.” His voice shook just a little.

“He’s in the creative writing department,” Derek explained quickly.

“Nice to meet you, Chris! I’m David, and this is my fiancée, Irene! She’s a computer genius, and I do my best with numbers!”

“He’s a statistician,” Irene explained, giving her fiancé a fond, if slightly exasperated, smile. “I’m a computer scientist.”

Chris nodded, the smile frozen on his face. “Cool.”

David explained the game again, and Derek tried to focus enough to understand the game. Chris definitely already knew how to play. As they started playing, he and his dad were a perfect team. They absolutely destroyed Derek and Irene.

When David announced that Derek and Irene were at negative two hundred points, Derek leaned across the table to apologize to Irene, “I’m sorry, card games aren’t really my thing.”

She shrugged. “Me neither. But at least they’re happy.”

Chris and David were currently each occupied exclaiming excitedly about how each other was a great player. Chris seemed to have gotten used to hanging out with his parents.

“How did you two meet?” Irene asked, and Irene had such a gentle, thoughtful way about her, so much like Chris, that he just told her the truth without thinking.

“We’re on the same hockey team. We’ve been friends for a couple years, but we just got together recently.”

“That’s so sweet. When did you know you liked him?”

“Oh, as soon as we got to Samwell. But he was dating someone else for a long time.” At that precise moment, the noise in the room hit a lull, and Derek had forgotten that Chris was completely within earshot.

Out the corner of his eye, he saw Chris freeze. Chris was staring at Derek with his mouth slightly open, his eyes wide with shock. Derek felt his stomach churn. He didn’t know when he’d been planning on telling Chris, but this was definitely not the way he’d hoped.

David didn’t seem to notice the awkwardness. “It was the same with me! I’ve always liked Irene, but I couldn’t work up the courage to ask her out until I’d known her for two years!”

Irene was more savvy than her fiancé. “You know, David, I’m getting hungry. Let’s grab some food.”

“Okay! See you guys around!”

Irene and David disappeared into the hallway, leaving Derek and Chris staring at each other.

Chris pointed behind him. “I’m, um, going to go to the bathroom. Feeling weird.”

“Should I come with?”

Chris gave him a little smile. “Yeah, come on.”

The bathroom was totally normal. It had all their toiletries and the Sharks shower curtain.

Chris sat on the tiled floor, and Derek cautiously sat across from him, trying to gauge how mad Chris was at him, but his face was impassive.

They sat in tense silence. Chris was staring blankly at the mirror above Derek’s head. Derek tried to read his face, but after a minute it was just too much. He focused on his hands. How could he have screwed up this bad? He’d finally found the sweetest guy in the world, someone kind and good and loving, and he’d fucked it all up. He supposed it was inevitable. He was never going to be able to hold onto a guy like Chris Chow.

“I’m sorry, Derek, maybe I’m just overreacting. I just don’t get why you haven’t told me? Like, it feels weird to me that you’d like me for two years, but when we get together you don’t mention it? Like, why is that a secret?”

Derek had no words. Chris looked so hurt and confused, and Derek had nothing to say to make him feel better. What was there to rationalize that deep feeling in his chest that told him that to confess the truth of his feelings for Chris would be to lose Chris forever? Derek had always known he felt too deeply for other people, but that wasn’t something he could just tell Chris. It was stupid, and self-absorbed, and didn’t justify this lie.

He had to say something. Chris was staring at him, his eyes begging Derek to make everything okay, to have an easy explanation that would put this all to bed. But Derek had nothing.

Then, in a move by the universe that was incomprehensibly cruel, Derek’s own voice began to speak from his room next door.

“I love you.”

Derek knew exactly what was about to happen. He remembered this moment with horrible precision. He’d seen it behind his eyes a thousand times and in his nightmares. He covered his ears with his hands like a child, but it didn’t seem to block the sound. Or maybe he just remembered it so well he could play it in his mind.

“What?” said Jamie. He was putting his pants on, the green corduroys.

“I love you.” Derek kissed Jamie’s bare shoulder, wrapping his arms around Jamie as if touching him more would get the message across better. Both of Derek’s arms were still soft and unbroken.

Jamie stared at him. “You love me?”

“Uh-huh,” Derek had replied, like some idiot from a rom-com batting their eyelashes at their co-star.

“Derek, I thought we agreed this wasn’t that kind of thing.”

Then it all tumbled down on him like crumbling rock.

“But that was six months ago!”

“I mean, yeah, but I never said I wanted a relationship.”

“You took me to Greek Prom!”

“Lots of people take their hookups to that.”

“Your hookup? I’m your HOOKUP?!”

“You’re not my hookup. I just mean, we’re not in a serious relationship. It’s not like we’re couple material.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I’ve got other stuff going on, and you’re not a committed relationship guy—it just wouldn’t work!”

“What do you mean I’m not a ‘committed relationship guy’?”

“You have people fawning over you wherever you go!”

“That’s not my fault!”

“Look, I’m sorry if your feelings are hurt, but I made my expectations very clear. I’m gonna go now.”

“You can’t just walk out of here, we need to talk about this!”

But Jamie was already on the stairs. Derek pulled on his jeans and ran after him, finally catching up by the front door. “Please, Jamie, can we just talk?! This doesn’t make any sense!”

Jamie looked at him with those brilliant green eyes. “Derek, there’s nothing to talk about. You misunderstood our relationship. Have a nice summer.”

Derek watched Jamie retreat in stunned disbelief, pain welling in his chest, sickness in his stomach. He collapsed on the couch and sobbed and sobbed. He was such a fool. He should have known. Jamie had never said anything like that, except after sex, when he was so sweet—

“Derek, baby, look at me.” A hand was touching his wrist. “It’s over. He’s gone. It wasn’t real. Just one of the ghost things.”

Derek opened his eyes. Chris was inches away from him, his eyes soft and loving. Derek could feel his face was wet with tears.

“Come here.” Chris opened his arms, inviting Derek to be held close.

“But, I lied to you.”

“Well, I’m going to take a break from being your boyfriend for a minute and just be your friend, okay? Now come let me give you a hug.”

Derek crawled into Chris’s arms and let himself whimper into Chris’s hoodie. Everything felt over real. The raw hurt of Jamie leaving seemed to fill his body, taking over until he was only intense feeling and pained sounds.

It took him a long time to regain control. Every time he thought he was okay, the image of Chris asking him why he’d kept his feelings hidden flashed before his eyes, sending him reeling again.

But Chris was rubbing circles on his back and murmuring, “it’s okay, you’re okay,” over and over. After a long time, Derek’s hitching breaths fell into rhythm with the circles of Chris’s hands. He focused on the warmth of Chris’s arms and the clean quiet of the bathroom.

He looked up at Chris, watching him with soft eyes. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Derek replied croakily.

“That was awful. I’m so sorry.”

Derek nodded. That was true. It was awful.

“I didn’t know that was how it ended.”

Another plume of old hurt spread through Derek’s chest. “Yep. I just, totally misread the signs.”

Chris gave him a squeeze. “No you didn’t! He’s a jerk! Everyone thought you two were dating!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! He used to come to games!”

“With his friends.” Derek had only realized afterward, when he thought back, that Jamie had never come to a game by himself. He should have recognized the signs. Jamie had never been coming to games for him.

“So?!”

“He had a girlfriend at Yale.”

“Oh my god.”

“They’re engaged now.”

“Jesus Christ! What an asshole! You should have told us! We could have beat him up and egged his room or something.”

Derek gave a watery laugh. “If you guys egged a room every time I got over-attached to someone, Bitty would never have eggs for pies.”

Chris stroked Derek’s cheek softly with his thumb. “Is that always what happens when you get feelings for someone?”

“I just have a tragic knack for catching feelings, that’s all.”

Chris gave him a searching look. “Can I go back to being your boyfriend for a minute?”

“Only if you want to,” Derek joked, but Chris didn’t laugh.

He gestured towards Derek’s room. “Is that what you thought would happen if you told me that you’ve had feelings for me for a while?”

“I didn’t think you’d storm out of the Haus, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, I mean, did you think I’d start saying things like he said?”

“Of course not, you’d never been mean like he was. But it’s a lot to put on someone, that you’ve liked them for years even though you just started dating. I knew it would weird you out and probably scare you away.” It was poetic, really. “And I was right—you’re mad at me right now.”

Chris let out a pained sound. “No, Derek, no, no, no! That’s not it at all! I felt confused because I didn’t understand why you hid that from me! But it’s okay to be scared. And I promise, I’m not afraid of your feelings. I want to know.”

God, Chris was so good—he always wanted to be doing the right thing, even when it hurt him. “I don’t think you want that.” Derek pulled out of Chris’s arms so their eyes were level. “Chris, I have really strong emotions. Sometimes they scare me.” 

“Derek, I don’t want some sanitized, family friendly version of you. I want you. The way you feel things so deeply is part of what makes you so amazing.”

Derek’s eyes filled with tears again. He wanted to believe. “But what if it’s too much?”

“That’s okay. I’d rather know how you really feel than have you hide it from me.”

Derek looked into Chris’s lovely eyes, and Chris did not look away. Derek could see the sincerity in his sweet steady soul. Chris really did want the truth.

But fear lingered. Chris might want the truth, he might think he was ready for it, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still be frightened away. Yet, if Derek hid from him now, Chris would leave him someday anyway, when the truth came out.

Chris broke Derek’s panicked train of thought. He took Derek’s hands in his and kissed them. “It’s okay, cutie. I got you.”

And it felt right. Like Chris really did have him.

Derek closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. He thought the words in his head, carefully, writing them over and over in his mind until they were bold and bright in the dark.

He opened his eyes and looked at Chris’s patient, smiling face. Then he said the words, slowly, precisely, “Chris Chow, I love you. I—I’ve loved you for a long time.” His voice only shook once.

“Really?” Chris’s face did not crumple or look taken aback. Instead his eyes lit up and he smiled like Derek had just given him the greatest news he ever heard. “You love me?”

Derek nodded. His voice seemed to have momentarily wandered off. He felt like he might topple over from the weight of his feelings.

“And you’ve loved me for a while? What does that mean? How long?”

Derek laughed a giddy, shaky laugh. This was so far from what he’d expected, it felt surreal. “I’m not sure. I knew you were wonderful on our frog tour, but I didn’t know how wonderful until at least part way through freshman year, and it wasn’t until sophomore year that I knew how I felt. So I guess I don’t know.”

For a moment, Chris just looked at him with a gaze of transported delight. “You’ve loved me for that long?” he whispered.

“And you’re sure it’s...okay?”

“It’s so okay. One of my best friends in the entire world loves me, loves me even when I can’t see it! Wow wow wow!!!” Chris kissed him, and it was a relief, as if nothing else could have made this real.

The kiss started sweet and tender, but Derek pulled him in, wanting more. Derek wanted a kiss so real it could banish the fearful shaking in his bones. Chris obliged him, kissing him and kissing him, pressing him into the wood of the bathroom cabinets, breathing the air out of his lungs.

“Fuck, Derek, I want you,” Chris groaned, sending a wave of heat down Derek’s spine.

“You’re injured,” Derek gasped against Chris’s mouth, but his willpower was low. The hundred or so emotions he’d felt in the past ten minutes were begging for release and turning him on so fast it was kind of incredible.

“Fuck!” Chris growled with frustration.

“If you don’t move too much, I think I could ride you.” 

Chris made a choked sound. “Yes, fuck, yes, yes, please, Derek, god.” He immediately started pulling Derek on top of him, but Derek overbalanced and rolled onto the tile of the floor instead.

“Not in the bathroom though. Then we’d both get injured.”

Chris pressed kisses to Derek’s neck. “So smart, so fucking smart.”

Derek laughed and pushed Chris away with good hand. “Come on—my room. Now!”

Chris stood up carefully, then raced into Derek’s room, calling out, “If you cockblock me, Haus, I will have words with you!”

Derek followed him, laughing. He scrambled toward his dresser, sifting through his socks to find his lube and condoms. Chris was already in the top bunk, pulling his clothes off. “Chris, catch!” Derek threw a packet of condoms up, and Chris caught it in mid air. “Put one on.”

“I like it when you tell me what to do.” Chris grinned as he tore open a condom package.

“Mmm. Good to know.” Derek finally found his favorite lube and tossed it into the top bunk. He pulled off his clothes and climbed the ladder in his underwear to find Chris waiting for him naked and condomed, looking as beautiful as a sunrise. But, like, a sexy sunrise.

As soon as Derek was mostly on the bed, Chris pulled him in for a deep, hungry kiss. He wrapped his arms around Derek to press their bodies together, from shoulder to chest to stomach to dick, and the rhythm of their mouths became the rhythm of their hips grinding together, building and building.

“Fuck, Chris, lie back.”

He felt Chris shiver briefly before he lay flat. He made a gorgeous moan as Derek pulled off his underwear. “So gorgeous, so fucking gorgeous, oh my god.”

Derek uncapped the lube and squirted a generous dollop straight onto Chris’s dick. “Sorry, only one hand.”

“Don’t give a shit—oh, fuck!”

Derek pumped his hand up and down Chris’s dick, spreading lube up it and getting Chris’s dick with the program. “You want it?”

“Yes, please, please, Jesus fucking Christ.” Chris was pushing his hips up to meet Derek’s hand, trying to get more.

“Hey, hey-” Derek pressed Chris’s hips down with his cast, “-you need to stay still, okay?”

Chris nodded, pushing his ass back down into the mattress. “Yes, Derek, sorry.”

“Don’t say sorry to me—you need to take care of yourself.” He crawled up Chris’s body so his hips were positioned just above Chris’s dick. “Now, you ready?”

Chris’s eyelashes fluttered. “Yes.”

Derek lowered himself slowly, slowly down, trying not to hurt himself. The lube was slick and good, and the stretch was warm and delicious, and he felt so good as he filled up, but he made himself keep moving slowly. He could hear Chris let out a long slow whine; Chris’s hands clucked the sheets, but he didn’t move.

“You’re doing so good, baby. Almost there.”

Chris whimpered.

Derek could feel the wave of heat as Chris’s dick pushed into his prostate, and it built as he sunk deeper. “Fuck,” he breathed.

“Feels good?” Chris asked in a tight voice.

“So good.”

Chris moaned. “This is torture.”

At long last, Derek bottomed out, his hips pressed into Chris, his body so full, he thought he might break. He rotated his hips slightly, just to get used to the feeling.

Chris almost sobbed. “Don’t stop, oh my god, Derek please, please, do that again!”

Derek lifted himself and ground down in small slow circles, then larger and faster ones, letting himself get the angle just right to send incredible, bright blooms of feeling up his belly.

Chris was making deep, delicious moans that came in waves. Derek could almost feel the warm pressure building in Chris’s body, ebbing and flowing with the tempo of his hips.

Chris reached up to hold Derek’s waist, moaning, “So good, so fucking good.”

After some experimenting, Derek found the tempo that sent constant perfect curls of feeling through his body. He settled into the rhythm and felt Chris shudder beneath him.

“You done?” Derek breathed through the haze of brilliant light in his head.

“No,” he heard Chris say, “just—fuck,” and felt hands squeeze his hips.

Derek let himself get lost in his senses, in the feeling of fucking himself on Chris’s dick. Warmth surged up from his hips in waves of luminous heat, his thighs burned, strong hands pulled him. His whole body seemed to glow with energy, the promise of orgasm tensing his muscles.

Finally, he reached down with his still slippery hand to stroke himself, pumping once, twice, thrice before all the coiled pressure spilled out of his dick and flooded his body. He trembled but fucked himself through it, chasing the aftershocks.

He opened his eyes with a groan as another rush of pleasure-nearing-pain emanated from his oversensitive prostate. Chris was watching him with wide eyes, his mouth slightly open. “If I could only look at one thing for the rest of my life,” he whispered, “that would be it.”

Derek grinned. “Did you come?”

Chris looked down at his dick, as if he’d forgotten about it and shook his head. “No-” he gasped as Derek twisted his hips, “-got distracted.”

“Let me fix that.”

Derek pulled out every trick in his book to ride Chris as hard as he’d ridden anyone in his life. Hardly a minute later, Chris almost screamed as he came. As Chris lay limp against the bed, Derek removed the condom, now very used, and made a quick jaunt to the bathroom to wash himself off.

Miraculously, when he climbed up to the bed again, Chris was still awake. “Hey cutie,” he said sleepily, pulling Derek into his arms.

“Hey baby, how are you doing?”

“Might be dead. But ‘fucked to death’ isn’t a bad way to go.”

Derek laughed, and immediately drifted into deep, lovely sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

The whole world was warm and cozy and sleepy. Without opening his eyes, Chris kissed Nursey’s hair and pressed his nose into the soft curls. “Hmmm.”

“You awake, baby?”

“Think so. Or maybe having a very good dream.”

Nursey laughed. Chris felt the mattress sink as Nursey turned over, and Chris opened his eyes to see him.

Nursey was propped up on one arm, a book just closed by his elbow. He was smiling his softest, most open smile. His eyes, perfectly gray today, examined Chris’s face like a piece of art. “Good morning.” He leaned down to press a kiss to Chris’s cheek.

Chris felt a warmth gather in his chest. His eyes stung. “Good morning,” he whispered, blinking the tears from his eyes.

Nursey’s face fell. He cupped Chris’s face gently. “Baby, what’s wrong? You’re crying.”

Chris nuzzled Derek’s hand. “Nothing’s wrong. You just make me very happy.”

Nursey’s smile returned twice as bright, his eyes crinkled gorgeously. He bit his lip. “Oh.” He collapsed onto Chris’s chest, burying his face in Chris’s neck.

“You smell nice.”

Nursey squirmed deeper into Chris’s shoulder with a small sound of distress. Chris laughed.

“You okay, cutie?”

Nursey looked up nervously. “Can I—would it freak you out if I said I love you?”

Chris’s heart filled again with that bittersweet delight. He loves me! He wrapped Derek in his arms and held him close. “It doesn’t freak me out! You can say it as much as you want. But, I don’t think I’m ready to say it back?”

Nursey gave him a soft smile. He pushed back Chris’s bangs with his fingers. “That’s okay.”

“I will though! I can tell! I just need some time! This is all so new, it feels unreal. I need to get used to us, before I can start thinking about the big stuff.”

“Chris, you can take as long as you need. No pressure, I promise. It’s just, hard for me. Not to say it. Especially when you’re being very wonderful. Like right now.”

“It would be more wonderful if I could say it back.”

Nursey shook his head. “I prefer a million times over to know how you really feel. And I like that you’re careful with words. They mean a lot, to me.”

Chris was helpless in the face of such goodness. He pulled Nursey into a kiss, and they kissed dreamily in the soft light of the top bunk.

Slowly, Chris’s body woke up, gradually becoming aware of the gorgeous human being on top of him. Their kiss grew deeper, and Chris reached down to touch the firm pressure against his low stomach. He stroked the petal-soft skin until Nursey pushed his hand away with a moan. Then Nursey raised his hips and reached down to skilfully take Chris apart.

When Chris finally had to beg Nursey to stop, Nursey flopped down onto the mattress with a grin. “You know, I never asked you what you thought about having sex with a guy.”

“TBH, I’m getting used to that part of dating you pretty fast. Fuck.”

Nursey laughed. “What about last night?”

At the mention of last night, Chris’s dick made a valiant and painful attempt to express interest in a repeat. Chris groaned. “My dick is not ready to talk about last night.”

Nursey laughed again, and they kissed lazily until Chris’s stomach gurgled. Nursey sat up, tugging Chris up with him. “We need to get you fed. You’re injured.”

“Derek, it’s a pinched nerve, not the flu.”

“Shut up and let me take care of you.”

Climbing down the ladder was not nearly as painful as it had been last night. As he showered, Chris played with his hip a little bit, hoping the warm water would soften things up. He couldn’t feel any of the strange hollow pain that had been there since Thursday.

While Nursey showered, Chris experimented with the stairs. Where last night every other step sent a weird soreness up his spine, the stairs no effect on him now. When he got to the bottom, he ran up and down a few times just to revel in how easy it was.

Nursey found him cracking eggs into the frying pan. “Overeasy, please,” he said, kissing Chris’s shoulder.

“‘Course. Can you handle putting some toast in for us?”

“Christopher Chow, I am offended.” He then went on to put toast into the toaster without plugging it in. Chris watched him push down the button with more and more frustration, growling each time it popped back up.

“Derek—”

“No! I will figure this out!” He struggled for another minute before putting his head on the counter. “What am I doing wrong?”

“It’s unplugged.”

“For fuck’s sake!”

“Also,” added Chris as he slid eggs onto a plate, “I think my hip is better.”

“Wait, actually? Just like that?”

“Audrey said it might fix itself.”

“Hmm.” Nursey looked at Chris’s hip thoughtfully. “Or maybe I gave you such an incredible orgasm that it fixed all your ails and healed your body.”

Chris burst into laughter. “Probably.”

After a very strange, intense week, it was pure delight to quietly make breakfast with Nursey. Nursey watched the toaster with determination, observing the bread grow gradually browner, popping them when they were only slightly burnt. Chris fried eggs for both of them, then bacon. The kitchen filled with rich comforting smells, the sizzle of the skillet, the gurgle as Nursey poured them juice, the roar of the boiler, then the fragrance of jasmine wafting atop the other smells as Nursey made them a pot of tea. The kitchen was bright and familiar, all the curtains framing the windows as they ought to be, the tile clean against his socks. And Nursey was there, always sparkling at the edge of his vision. Occasionally Nursey would stop what he was doing to lay his head on Chris’s shoulder, standing wordlessly, pressing forehead into the fabric of Chris’s t-shirt, as if he were trying to press his very thoughts into Chris’s skin.

Chris dabbed the grease off the last pan of bacon and stood back to look at the table. “This is an impressive spread.” They had fried eggs, bacon, toast, Bitty’s jam, bananas, and Jasmine tea. It smelled like heaven.

“You know what we should do? We should eat this on the couch. I bet the couch would like that.”

“Good idea! But go check that Bitty and Jack aren’t still flirting.”

Nursey laughed and jokingly looked into the living room. He promptly fell over.

“Derek, what did you trip on the kitchen floor?!”

“It’s gone!” said Nursey in a choked voice.

“What?” Chris turned to see Nursey sprawled on the floor, staring out at the living room in horror.

“Chris, the couch is gone!” He glanced up at Chris, his eyes full of fear. “It’s gone,” he whispered again.

Chris crossed the floor carefully, stepping over Nursey’s legs, and looked into the living room. Where there should have been a couch, where there’d been a couch yesterday morning, where Freshman Jack had spilled juice on himself, where they’d seen Bitty and Jack flirting, there was nothing but an empty space and a dusty patch of floor.

“What the fuck.” He looked at Nursey. Nursey looked at him.

“Baby, not gonna lie, this is freaky as fuck, and I do not like it.” Nursey’s eyes kept glancing back at the spot where the couch should have been, as though it might jump out at him.

“Okay, okay, okay.” Chris blinked rapidly, trying to get his brain to come back online. “Let’s eat breakfast.”

Nursey looked at him incredulously. “Eat breakfast? The couch just disappeared!”

“We’re going to figure this out. But we should eat first. We’ll think better.” He held out his hand. Nursey gave him a dubious look, but he let Chris lift him to his feet and returned to the table. They ate in silence, but all the cozy quiet was gone. Now they held hands, Chris’s hand twined with Nursey’s cast-bound one, and gave each other nervous glances at every creak of old wood or plunk of old pipes. Nursey didn’t even pretend he was giving the banana a blowjob.

Finally, when all they had left was tea and cold toast, Nursey looked at Chris with wide eyes. “What do you think?”

Chris tried to think of any explanation that made sense. “Someone stole it while we slept?”

Nursey looked unimpressed. “No one on earth would steal that couch. It is not a nice couch. And there was a TV right there! If they were already taking a shitty couch, why not take the TV too?”

“Okay, good point.” Chris sipped his tea. “Where was the last place we saw it?”

Nursey squinted past him. “Your room? We sat on it when we played cards.”

“You’re right!” He leapt to his feet. 

Nursey just stared at him for a moment, apparently stunned, then he stood and gave Chris’s hand a squeeze. “What are we doing?”

“Checking my room for the couch. Let’s go!”

They walked quickly past the living room and up the stairs. When they approached Chris’s door, there was no sign of the party where they’d met Chris’s parents. No sound came through the door, and no light peaked under the edge.

“Could the couch still be there if they’re gone?” Nursey asked quietly.

Chris shrugged. “No idea. We should still check though, right?”

Nursey nodded. He brought both his hands to squeeze Chris’s arm extra tight. Cautiously, Chris reached out to the door. When he touched the doorknob, Nursey gasped, but nothing happened.

Chris pushed open the door.

His room looked totally normal. All trace of the party was gone. Even his jeans were exactly where he left them on the floor yesterday.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” sighed Nursey.

“I’m going to check Bitty’s room.” Chris opened Bitty’s door, but everything in there was exactly as it should have been. Bitty’s bed was back in place, his things up on the walls. “Fuck! Where is it? Was there anywhere else we saw it?”

Nursey shook his head. “No. I mean, the sorority could have brought it into the basement for their lounge or whatever that was, but I never saw it. And if it’s not in your room or Bitty’s room, why would it be there?”

“Ugh! You’re right. This doesn’t make any sense at all.” Chris pressed his forehead into the cool glass of the window, trying to think. Outside the morning was bright with shades of yellow and orange.

Nursey snuggled up to his side. He hugged Chris’s arm and kissed his shoulder. “It’s a weird couch. It didn’t burn even though Bitty lit it on fire, and it teleported into the Haus from the yard. I don’t think we should assume this will make sense.”

Something clicked inside Chris’s head. “Wait, Derek, what if the weird stuff in the Haus and the weird stuff with the couch go together?”

“How do you mean?”

Chris squeezed his eyes closed, trying to keep the idea from slipping away. “The couch did some pretty magical stuff two days ago. And it made me lose my luck afterward because it was mad. Then last night, the Haus filled up with images of people from the past, which is definitely some kind of supernatural phenomenon.”

Nursey gasped softly. “And the couch was in all of them!”

“What?” Chris looked at him. Now it was his turn to be confused.

Nursey nodded to himself. “The couch was in Bitty’s room, and in the living room at the party, and it was probably in the basement because the sorority girls kept all their comfy furniture down there, and then it was in your room!”

“Did you, um, have it in your bedroom over the summer?”

“No, but after Jamie left I cried on the couch for a while.”

“Oh, Derek!” Chris wrapped Nursey in his arms. Just listening to that bastard talk to Nursey had been so horrible, he couldn’t imagine how horrible it was to relive that memory. It had been terrifying to watch Nursey tremble on the bathroom floor with his head buried between his knees, crying as those horrible words came in through the door. Chris had nearly had to shake Nursey to get him to look up. He desperately wished he could soften the hurt somehow, carry some of that load.

Nursey shimmied in Chris’s arms. “Focus, baby, we need to figure out what’s up with the couch. I’m okay.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Reluctantly, Chris let go, and Nursey continued, “So all the people we saw last night were with the couch, in some way, at some point.”

“Probably.”

“Probably. And now the couch has disappeared. And this couch clearly has some kind of power, since it was able to move around on its own. So, maybe it was the couch that made all those people appear?”

“But why would the couch do that? Because it was mad at me? And why would it just disappear afterwards?”

It was Nursey’s turn to press his forehead into the windowpane and stare outside. “I don’t know! But I think I was wrong last night. I think it was the couch, not the Haus, that was doing this.”

Chris closed his eyes and leaned into the wall. All the strange moments from last night were swimming in his head. The game night in his room, but not in his room. The weird, identical-looking blonde girls in Bitty’s room who eyed Nursey like he was a piece of cake. Jack’s horrible old captain, looming over them. Nursey’s voice pleading next door while Nursey sobbed in front of him. Jenny and Mandy talking to them like this was all just a fun Friday night activity. It was all so bizarre.

Then Nursey gasped again. “Chris! Look! There’s a black spot on the grass!”

Chris turned and saw a weird dark area on the Haus lawn that he’d never seen before. “Huh. Do you think that has something to do with all this weird stuff?”

“I think—I think that’s where the couch was when Bitty burned it!”

“Wait, so the couch actually did burn? Then why did we not see that before? Because it was definitely not there before.”

Nursey was staring into Chris’s face, but his eyes were unfocused, almost dreamy. “It’s a wise couch.”

“Huh?”

“You said, ‘it’s a wise couch’ the other day. Full of years of experience. You sleep on it because it gives you wisdom that makes you lucky. And now you have its wisdom. Because it shared its memories with you before it burned away.”

Chris considered this. All of the things Nursey was saying made a kind of sense, but he wasn’t sure. “Did it have to make you relive a traumatic moment? What kind of wisdom was that?”

Nursey gave his lips a soft kiss. “It let me say that I love you.”

“Yeah, but,” Chris tamped down on the flood of delight that those words sent through him, “it was completely awful.”

Nursey shrugged. “I’m not saying the couch did a great job. But it seemed to have worked. Your hip is better, and I’m willing to bet you can save pucks again.”

Chris rolled his eyes emphatically. “Still don’t think it was worth it.”

For a long moment, Nursey just looked at him with a smile that made Chris’s whole body feel like melted butter. Then Nursey leaned in and laid the barest hint of a kiss on Chris’s lips. “Did you know that I love you? Because I do. I love you.”

They stood there for a long time, just trading soft kisses against the hallway window. Outside the world was bright and crisp, and inside Derek glowed as brightly as any star. Chris had no mysteries to solve, nothing to do but be with this man he adored. Today, the world could be simple.

“Derek?” he asked between kisses.

“Yes, baby?”

“Did you have anything in particular you wanted to do today?”

“Nothing that can’t wait. Why, what were you thinking?”

“Well, I was thinking. How would you feel about going shopping for a new couch?”

Nursey’s face lit up with a delighted smile. “You know what? That sounds perfect.”

Chris texted Bitty,  _ Finding a new couch _ . He took Derek’s hand. And together they walked out into another crisp, Autumn adventure.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please check out missweber's [beautiful art made for this fic](https://missweber.tumblr.com/post/189199890952/art). I am also Liminal-Space-LLC on the tumbles :)


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